“As many of you have by now heard and experienced, OS X Yosemite has its fair share of problems,” Jim Tanous writes for TekRevue.
“Some of them are minor (not preserving non-native scaling at boot or wake on Retina Displays which causes saved user windows to open at the wrong size and position) and some of them are major (UI slowdowns and system freezes that require daily reboots to clear, or Wi-Fi connectivity issues),” Tanous writes. “But the fact is that the list of bugs as of 10.10.1 (many of which are still present in the latest preview build of 10.10.2) is long and troubling, leading me to a realization this week: I no longer trust OS X. In fact, OS X Yosemite on both my 2013 Mac Pro and 2014 MacBook Pro is unusable in its current state.”
“At WWDC 2009, Apple’s then-Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Bertrand Serlet, took the stage and announced something that he called “unprecedented” in the computing industry: the upcoming OS X Snow Leopard would have ‘no new features,'” Tanous writes. “That wasn’t technically true, of course, but his point was that Apple was focusing on refining Leopard — fixing bugs, introducing under-the-hood improvements, and providing performance boosts across the board — rather than rolling out yet another set of end-user interface and functionality changes. It was indeed a bold move, but it paid off, and Snow Leopard is generally viewed as one of the best operating systems ever released by Apple.”
Tanous writes, “It’s time to do that again.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related article:
Open letter to Tim Cook: Apple needs to do better – January 5, 2015
Couldn’t agree more.
Yes indeed !
Folks we need to put as much pressure on apple as possible!
Keep writing them !….take an active roll !!!!
Same here.
Ehh, Yosemite is fairly stable for me. It’s those fucking dogshit piles iTunes 12 (yeah, let’s change the way our most important app works with no ability to backtrack because my new hardware requires that new software) and iOS 8 (46% battery life? Not enough to run Face Time), let’s shut down.
Not a fan of frequent updates either so much as rock solid performance and fewer bugs. Maybe every 3 years a major update that’s been well thought out and equally bullet proof?
It is actually about every three years for a true “major” update of OS X, if you think about it. Most of the time, the annual OS X update adds new apps and functionality, without drastic changes to the underlying system.
Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks should be considered ONE release of OS X that received progressive enhancements every year. And then Yosemite was a true MAJOR new release of OS X, that will receive progressive enhancements over the next two (or more) years.
It’s not that different from what was happening before Lion; Apple is just being clever with marketing “progress,” to make Microsoft look bad and encourage a continuous flow of Windows deserters to the Mac world.
I haven’t had any major issues with OS X caused by the annual updates. I don’t even do a “clean” install anymore, except when I get a completely new Mac. And I don’t do dumb stuff like install the Yosemite public beta over my primary day-to-day system, or fall victim to trojan schemes and (intentionally) install malware.
If it appears there are more people reporting problems, that’s because there are… And the reason there are more problems being reported is because there are MANY times more total Mac users now, compared to the “good old days” of Snow Leopard; there will be a PERCENTAGE of users with problems like data corruption and failing drives (or otherwise do “dumb stuff” to their OS X system). That means more reported problems since there are more total users. It is a symptom of Apple’s monumental success and rebirth of the Mac platform. It is NOT because Apple’s software quality has suffered.
I have never posted so direct a reply as I’m about to: you, ken1w, are flat-out wrong.
Look at all the comments from the overwhelmingly Apple loyalists on MDN (both this article and last week’s An Open Letter to Tim Cook). Then look at the results of the current poll (Has Apple’s software quality slipped in the last few years?) — once again, voted on largely by those who frequent this site.
Apple need to “unstick” themselves from the once a year upgrade cycle for both iOS and OS X, and the time is now. Maintenance updates, when feasible and much more fully tested, should be the norm.
I am an Apple loyalist from the days when there were very few who believed. But history has taught us that tech companies who alienate their customers by letting quality slip are too easily replaced.
Apple: You need to listen, and take the appropriate steps to return to quality software on both of your platforms (and revert to iTunes v11.x; the UI in v12 is horrendous).
Apple “loyalists” are not the universe of Apple “customers.” The vast majority of Apple’s customers are (silently) happy with their treasured Apple products. And most of them don’t “frequent this site”; they just use their Apple gear as part of their lives, problem-free…
If Apple is “alienating” their customers, Apple would not be achieving record-breaking results, and growth that is accelerating UPWARD. The proof is in the real-world results, achieved by faithfully serving real-world customers. Real-world customers who consistently return to buy MORE Apple products.
You are going by the numbers, ken1w. That is regarded by the faithful as specious reasoning, a distraction. Of what use are statistics if they don’t represent my individual case? Apple works for me, goddamit! Fix my problems, Apple! I speak for untold millions! Or at least for my immediate circle, who really matter! Or if not that, what of the Jobsian ideal workmanship? These bugs are an abject betrayal of what made Apple special! Hand me that megaphone, ken. I’ll show them what happens when they deviate from the yellow brick road!
Statistics? LOL… The relatively small sampling of Mac users who happen to visit MDN, and the sub-set of that group who happen to see the survey in the sidebar, and sub-set of that group who decide to participate (minus the unknown number of votes from participants who vote multiple times), is hardly “statistics.” Counting the number of “separate posts” in Apple support forum is also not “statistics,” just lazy research. Your hyperventilating post is also not “statistics.” My experience of having no significant problems with the annual OS X release cycle is just as valid as your comical (maybe even satirical) rant (and more coherent).
What really matters and truly represent ALL (real) Apple customers are the undeniable “statistics” of Apple’s financial results. Actual Apple customers choosing to put down their hard-earn money to buy Apple products, many because they were happy with previous Apple products and being part of the Apple “eco-sysytem.” Apple can’t lie about their ACTUAL business results, and that trend points (if anything) to Apple customers becoming MORE happy about Apple’s products, NOT less.
I was trying to be sarcastic. To be more clear, instead, I should have said, I agree with you.
I have had my own issues with these software releases, and have had such issues with every software release since baby Moses swirled in the bulrushes; but I refrain from trumpeting them as if every user were experiencing debilitating trauma, which I know not to be the case. Unfortunately, the Internet amplifies everything, and turns every pet peeve into a debacle. It’s sort of the social equivalent of handing a loaded gun to an infant.
As I was writing the reply, I realized you may be joking around… Your post was entertaining, while not going completely “over the top” (compared to some people here who are actually “serious”). I thank you for the opportunity to make a few additional points… 🙂
Question: When was the iTunes UI actually good?
I think iTunes as an application needs to go away. The underlying code iTunes uses to play and manage video and music should be embedded in the Finder.
iTunes is the bridge with Windows. It is what made people buy the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. It is done a lot to get people to switch from Windows to the Mac. Unfortunately it has caused issues with both platforms.
While iTunes has gotten admittedly worse since Apple has crammed even more functionality into the application, even SoundJam, iTune’s predecessor, had a fairly crappy UI.
Please, please… name a time when Apple software was better than it is now? And if you could, please list all the problems you’re having with Yosemite.
Yes, I think most of the many complainers here read about problems and say to themselves, “Apple has serious issues” while not actually being personally affected. Or, their complaint is something like “UI in [iTunes] v12 is horrendous” (actual quote for above) or “I don’t like the look of Yosemite” which are Apple’s design decisions, not a reflection of “software quality.” (I personally like the new iTunes, after getting use to it and understanding the changes, and I have always liked the clean look of Yosemite, versus the ever-increasing eye-candy of previous OS X releases.)
And then there are the “trolls” pretending to “long-time loyal customers” of Apple products. You know how to tell…? They are the ones who typically feel the need to point out that they are “long-time loyal customers” of Apple products, instead of just stating their points.
On my late 2010 MBP running Yosemite crashes many times a day. So often were the crashes I performed a wipe of the HDD then performed a clean install; still it crashes. Running Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, this MBP never crashed. After installing Yosemite the crashes began, thus I blame Yosemite, not the MBP.
Well I’m sorry to hear that. Having a problem like that isn’t fun.
But the same problem you’re having now, other people have had on other versions of OS X even though you didn’t… and that’s the point here. So while you want to blame Yosemite, I’m sure those people blamed whatever OS release they updated to.
I would try doing a clean install of a previous release (such as Mavericks), to see of the crashing goes away or still recurs.
I use iCloud so the mail client no longer filters junk mail. Prior to the election I was getting more than 300 junk mails per day in my inbox and a similar amount between Thanksgiving and New Year. This has caused me to start testing third party email clients for the first time since OS X made its debut.
Overall the interface changes are extremely unpleasant, culminating in unreadable black text on dark blue buttons.
ITunes is in a class all its own, deleting music by itself, taking multiple tries to complete a sync, it’s inability to accurately report memory usage on iOS devices, it’s inability to perform syncs over Wi-Fi and the list goes on and on and on.
Wi-Fi connections have become hit and miss, and there are always the random crashes and various other bugs like drive icons showing up in the wrong place after a restart.
There have always been little glitches here and there, but never so many big problems that have continued this long. Installing Yosemite was the worst mistake I ever made on my Mac.
I’d say OS X was most stable for me from about Tiger to Mountain Lion, with a rough patch in the early days of Snow Leopard.
I was just thinking the same thing yesterday while installing Yosemite. It has a lot of promise but too many glitches.
Funny. They do it with their iPhones every year. When I think of the “S” track, I always think of it as the refined, bug-removed version of the new style phone released the previous year.
Yes, they should do a “Snow Leopard” on Yosemite. They are welcome to try and add a feature or two, but only after they’ve fixed everything else.
I should clarify that I don’t seem to be having *any* issues on Yosemite (so far). I like it…. but the sheer number of complaints I read from MDN itself to numerous anecdotes, something is amiss.
I’m running it on a two-week old refurbished MacBook Pro 2.9 i7 (non-Retina) and I haven’t had any issues. I also tested it on a base 13″ 2014 MacBook Air and didn’t have any issues, either.
I’m not a power user, though, and just use it for Safari, Pages, Scrivener, Traktor Pro and Djay Pro. Haven’t tested the DJ apps fully but they seem to run okay.
As it is, my main DJ laptop is still running Traktor Pro 2.1.3 under Snow Leopard 🙂
Amen: User’s time is valuable.
Bugs cost us users lost time and money.
Some of us wait until 6 months or a year into a new OS before we jump, just to avoid the headaches and the features & apps that don’t play nice in the beginning.
OSX has had an yearly update every year (except 3) since OS X Aqua in 2001, Nothing’s changed people.
From Tiger to Lion it was more like 1.5 to 2 years and the OS has become far more complex and mote tightly integrated with iOS since then. A yearly update cycle just creates legions of unknowing and unwilling beta testers.
iReiterate:
There has been a yearly update every year (except 3) since OS X Aqua in 2001.
Yes, but the OS has become far more complicated since then. There’s a lot more code to worry about and putting the programmers on a schedule is a mistake. An OS should not be released to the public until it’s ready. Why you think 70% of the poll responders are unhappy with apples most recent releases?
Yeah, Because The Panther upgrade that wiped out everyone’s external HD never happened… And before iCloud, iTools and Mobile Me worked flawlessly.. And OS X Leopard was so stable that the featureless Snow Leopard stability update was not even needed.
I keep forgetting that there were never any problems with Apple software before Mavericks.
You are wrong.
Taken from the Apple History website, here are the release dates below.
The .0 to .1 was 6 months but .0 was such a beta version they needed to get the .1 out quickly.
10.3 to 10.4 was 1.5 years, then 10.4 to 10.5 was 2.5 years.
The real kicker is the Snow Leopard “maintinance” release took almost 2 years to release.
So, yes, Apple needs to do this again. 10.10 is a mess. One group of web designers took it upon them selves to upgrade to 10.10 before checking with me. They are all on laptops and use Wi-Fi exclusively. They are all having Wi-Fi problems and Mail problems. They did not have these problems with 10.9.5.
10.10 Server FTP service is wacked. Works internally but no go from outside the firwall with port forwarding setup. Even tried Rumpus FTP on the 10.10 server. Still no go. Grabbed a MacBook Pro with 10.8.5 and loaded Rumpus FTP on it. Pointed the Port Forwarding to it and it just worked. So I now have a client with a 10.10.1 Server that FTP will not work. Great.
10.0 Cheetah March 2001
10.1 Puma September 2001 6 months
10.2 Jaguar August 2002 11 months
10.3 Panther October 2003 1 year 2 months
10.4 Tiger April 2005 1 year 6 months
10.5 Leopard October 2007 2 years 6 months
10.6 Snow Leopard August 2009 1 year 10 months –
10.7 Lion July 2011 1 year 11 months
10.8 Mountain Lion July 2012 1 year
10.9 Mavericks October 2013 1 year 3 months
10.10 Yosemite October 2014 1 year
The update to Mac OS X 10.6 will focus on improving performance, efficiency and reducing its overall memory footprint, rather than new end-user features.
AND it still took 1 year 10 months to release.
It appears that my point in parenthesis(EXCEPT 3) is being missed.
Articles like these continue to surface! And thank god! Tim Cook may not listen to the Apple faithful, but when enough folks in the tech industry raise red flags – maybe, just maybe – the brain-trust at Apple will realize that its software is damaging Apple’s reputation. Like a variation on the old political adage: “It’s the software, Stupid!” My heart aches for the day when I could say with confidence, “It just works.” Now all I can say is, “It just sucks!”
I waited a few months to install Yosemite, but I wish I waited longer. I got seduced by Continuity: and while that works great, I don’t use that part of the OS very often. Glad I at least kept my work computer on Mavericks. I want another Snow Leopard. That was a damn good OS.
Snow Leopard was a major under the hood update. Not too many new features but just a serious cleaning up of a internal code. It caused me a decent amount of grief, but as software updated it became extremely stable and that stability continued on for the rest of the big cats.
I feel that both OS X and iOS need a Snow Leopard type of break, where the bugs are squashed and the code cleaned up. For some idiotic reason some (probably some marketing drone) thought it would be a good idea to release yearly updates and that experiment failed.
“it just works” is a great marketing slogan, let’s just hope that Apple makes it a reality, because these days it’s a roll of the dice.
I’m 72 years old, have been using Snow Leopard since it was introduced and really enjoy it. I have a few “legacy” applications that I have used since Moby Dick was a Guppy and Appleworks 6 is one of them. I have so damn much stuff in it that even if there was a program that could read the files (DON’T tell me Pages will unless you know a secret that I don’t) it would take me forever to convert all of them. Apple – take a step back and do a quick update on Snow Leopard or build a Rosette App that works with the latest OSX versions and make a helluva lot of people happy. Now, before all you young tech savvy bucks jump all over me, just remember that you, too, are going to get to my age and will surely piss & moan about something else that Apple has done to screw over your mind and make things more difficult! Just make sure it works right out of the box!!
I second the motion.
OS X has been going downhill since Snow Leopard.
Jes42, I am CERTAINLY not “jumping all over you” but them doing any work on previous versions, especially one three versions ago, is a fantasy that is not going to happen. There is just no upside for Apple to do it.
I did see this Macworld article that lists some apps that will convert older Appleworks files to modern formats but give it up sir…either convert them, keep an old machine around, or abandon them because the day is coming soon when Apple will abandon Snow Leopard and it will be in the same shape your old System 9 Mac was in 🙂
http://www.macworld.com/article/1139468/moreonolderfileconversion.html
Hey – my 2001 TiBook 667 still boots to OS9 and works great! It’s a little slow but that’s to be expected for something almost 14 years old 🙂
Sure there’s an upside. Look at the numbers of people who love SL or whom are still on it. You might be surprised.
Well I’m not farting dust yet, but dropping support for AppleWorks 6 without providing an upgrade path for documents to work with iWork was one of the biggest mistakes Apple ever made, right after the yearly OS update cycle. I update computers a little more often so I’m often stuck with machines they can’t run the more stable operating systems.
I just hope that Apple gets the message and irons out all the bugs and attends to software like iTunes that hasn’t had a major update in almost a decade. New features are always welcomed but not at the cost of constant problems and compatibility issues. I shouldn’t have to keep a 14-year-old iBook handy just to access my olds AppleWorks files.
Apple no longer supporting Rosetta has been a major headache for me.
Many years ago, I used to use Freehand to design custom equipment, but Freehand was bought out and abandoned by Adobe, so it no longer exists. Although I’ve used a different application for designing stuff since then, I still have thousands of Freehand files that relate to stuff that I designed and which is still in service. The only way that I can read those files is by using a really elderly PPC Mac which I keep specifically for that purpose ( with a spare PowerBook just in case it packs up ).
Macs are regarded as being the computer of choice for designers. If you’re designing something ephemeral, such as a poster, then you don’t often need to go back to your old work, but if you’re designing equipment with a lifespan of tens of years, you will need to refer to those design documents for tens of years into the future. Rosetta was just software. I don’t see why it had to be killed off like it was. I understand how Apple wanted customers to migrate to Intel powered Macs, but we still need to be able to access our previous work on our Macs. At the very least, Rosetta could have become a paid-for app, so that those who needed it could still use it, but casual users would have been discouraged.
“Rosetta App”
No! No Rosetta App! AppleWorks 7!!! For OS X and iOS.
I’m feeling your pain. It’s a shame to see all of the investment in AppleWorks by users just be tossed aside. A modern AW would be wonderful.
When it rains, it pours.
It is getting too difficult to hide the fact that Apple software has been going downhill. Apple has been dumping quality, intuitiveness and functionality to give us features that we don’t want.
Who is we?
I guess I should feel fortunate I haven’t experienced any of these problems with my MBP Retina, for me it all just works, just like my other Mac devices. It sounds like these are isolated issues, they’re certainly not universal. I’ve never had the wireless problem, for example, and no display problem (even though I use it with an external monitor), and definitely no freezing problems.
Next OS X will integrate a powerful Siri and proximity awareness (approach the computer and be auto-logged in by the device on your arm). There’s no time for a Sno-semite.
Yosemite is totally usable even in beta. Some people like to exaggerate a lot.
Like, about bent iPhone 6s and stuff…
I have never had any problems with Yodiggity. Can’t say the same for MDN’s app, tho… 😉
Utterly, totally and completely agree.
Agile or whatever software development methodology Apple now uses is probably terrific for applications, like Safari or even Adobe CC: new features released incrementally are great for consumers.
But it’s a poor model for operating systems where security and stability should be the key drivers.
Snow Leopard remains the apex of OS X in performance and stability- it also still supported Rosetta.
Finally, it looked better without the UI downgrades introduced by Jony following Windows with the fad of flat graphics.
Yep. What he said! Absolutely, positively correct on both statements.
I have a Macbook Air purchased this past August, and a late 2011 Macbook Pro. The Air runs like a dream with Yosemite, and I don’t recall encountering ANY issues with it. My Macbook Pro is another story, unfortunately. While I wouldn’t call it “unusable,” it certainly has major issues.
I don’t know if I blame that on Yosemite itself, a bad install, hardware issues, or whatever else. But I would welcome Apple taking a year to focus on tightening up the performance of its OSes rather than cramming in new features.
Complete hyperbole mixed with ignorance.
First of all, every release of OS X has had issues, even Snow Leopard, Yosemite is no different. I’ve been using Yosemite since the GM and never has it been “unusable”.
Take into account…
1. Yosemite has the highest adoption rate of any release of OS X.
2. There are 2-3x as many Mac users today, than when Snow Leopard was released.
3. The complexity of the system has grown; there are many, many more features, subsystems, etc. in OS X now.
That means there are more people using Yosemite, using more features, so the probability of an issue being reported becomes much, much higher.
It’s ignorant to think that adding user facing changes (features) to an operating system would result in more bugs than adding foundational changes. Snow Leopard had many, many changes under the hood – it also had many reported issues, including, WiFi, Bluetooth, FireWire, battery, performance, multitasking, graphics, hard drive, etc.
Anyone who lacks the memory can easily look all of this up on the interwebs.
The author (and most of you) seem to think Apple releasing another “Snow Leopard” like version would be good because it would allow them to fix all the MAJOR problems with Yosemite that renders his systems “unusable”… Because for some reason everyone believes that “no new features” is equivalent to “no new bugs”.
So I’ve taken his show stopping major issues he listed above and found all these corresponding issues from Snow Leopard.
Wi-Fi:
Apple Support – Snow Leopard Wifi Connectivity Issues
InsanelyMac – Snow Leopard Wi-Fi Problems
Yahoo Answers – Problem connecting to wifi after upgrading to Mac OS Snow Leopard?
Performance:
Apple Support – Snow Leopard = downgrade in performance with serious Bugs found
Betalogue – Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard): Performance and video issues
Lifehacker – Performance Update Targets Hard Drive Issues in Leopard, Snow Leopard
Stability:
Cnet – Freezes in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
MacRumors – Snow Leopard – Crash / Freezing Issue – Hard Reboot Required
iLounge – Two Proposed Solutions to Snow Leopard Crash Problems on Macs
And that’s just the beginning. 10.6.2 contained over 40 bug fixes. I’m pretty sure byte for byte, Snow Leopard had just as many bugs and problems that Yosemite does.
Michael, Michael, stop this at once! You’re making entirely too much sense for the brain-dead folks who claim quality must be declining since they can’t (or won’t) remember all the software issues that existed long before Yosemite came along! 😉
“OS X 10.6.2 contained over 40 bug fixes.”
Right. 10.6 was created to optimize and fix bugs that still existed in 10.5.8.
Per Apple’s news release, “The update to Mac OS X 10.6 will focus on improving performance, efficiency and reducing its overall memory footprint, rather than new end-user features.”
Each 10.6.X release fixed many bugs. That was the whole point of this version.
In doing so this release took 1 year and 10 months to be released.
I had wanted to post something similar but chickened out. Why bother with statistical research if you know you’ll be raked over the coals anyway? While people’s individual concerns are valid, they can’t resist generalising them, bolstered by confirmation bias, and starting a petition. This kind of thing can result in the worst sort of crowdsourcing, generating memes that operate in one’s narrow interest but too often go viral and chew the leg off the dog. A canonical example would be the number of complaints Apple received about bent iPhones.. in the single digits, compared with thousands of strident voices raised in righteous calumny
People buy into the hype all too often. It is sad actually. This is the biggest problem with the web today. Same shit gets repeated enough, people start to believe it, even when it does not apply to them. Or they are a having a problem so their anger clouds their ability to think rationally.
I’ll be the first to say Yosemite isn’t perfect – I have an issue with Safari and a specific website (AppleInsider), for no reason at all my system randomly freezes and I have to reboot. It’s the damnedest thing.
But honestly, the people that think waiting longer to release software, or not adding features will put an end to bugs and issues really are naive.
Consider this… Snow Leopard added no new “features”, took almost TWO YEARS to develop, but it still had problems and a lot of them as I mentioned above.
I really like what Yosemite could be…
I’m waiting for MAIL to work. I know others have reported problems with it, but fixes are dragging on.
The author (and most of you) seem to think Apple releasing another “Snow Leopard” like version would be good because it would allow them to fix all the MAJOR problems with Yosemite that renders his systems “unusable”… Because for some reason everyone believes that “no new features” is equivalent to “no new bugs”.
So I’ve taken his show stopping major issues he listed above and found all these corresponding issues from Snow Leopard.
Wi-Fi:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3533964?start=0&tstart=0
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/170328-snow-leopard-wi-fi-problems/
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120321194129AAOXZ5H
Performance:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2141693?start=0&tstart=0
http://www.betalogue.com/2009/09/21/snowleopard-performance/
http://lifehacker.com/5382266/performance-update-targets-hard-drive-issues-in-leopard-snow-leopard
Stability:
http://www.cnet.com/news/freezes-in-mac-os-x-10-6-snow-leopard/
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=825208
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/backstage/comments/two-proposed-solutions-to-snow-leopard-crash-problems-on-macs/
Here’s a good one, 10.6.2 contained over 40 bug fixes for 10.6.1…
http://lifehacker.com/5400796/apple-releases-snow-leopard-1062-fixes-40%252B-bugs
And that’s just the beginning. I’m pretty sure byte for byte, Snow Leopard had just as many bugs and problems that Yosemite does.
And who can forget these other “problems with Snow Leopard:
Rosetta: still worked.
UI: still looked good.
Spotlight: still intuitive.
iMovie HD: still worked.
Matlab: still worked.
Fire Tim Cook!
“OS X Yosemite on both my 2013 Mac Pro and 2014 MacBook Pro is unusable in its current state.”
This is utter nonsense and a massive exaggeration. That statement does little more than depict the writer as an angry tech writer who thinks hyperbole is a good way to marshall the troops. Yosemite has had more problems than a release ready OS update should and Apple needs to develop a system/resist the marketing department pressure and prevent this level of glitchiness (sp).
A consistent trend I see in the comments here and on many other tech sites is being out of touch with who 99% of Apple’s customers are. They are not us. They are not the technically astute. They are not people that care, analyze and dissect like we do. I see this even more so on sites that cover iOS and Android devices. The wars are unreal and most spring from the disappointment generated by technophile’s unmet expectations. Those expectations will go unmet by mass market devices and software forever. Filling those expectations is what niche companies are for and if a profit can’t be made doing it no one will do it. 99% of Apple’s customers are thrilled with their Apple products. Most of that 1% that isn’t fits into the category I describe. It’s business and profits.
Many have complaints but maybe don’t explain them in a way all users can understand. What I have experienced as a Mac User since November 1986 is that Apple offers options that we as users buy into and get trapped. As an example, Appleworks, that became ClarisWorks that became Appleworks that became abandoned. I am not a lover of Windows or of Microsoft, but all the Word files that I created in the first version of Word and Excel over the past 28 plus years are still readable in the current versions of Word and Excel. Save As is still a menu choice under the File Menu. We have been sold iLife (iDVD, iWeb, iMovie, iPhoto, and iTunes) iDVD, iWeb, iPhoto GONE, iPhoto soon to be GONE and iTunes prior to version 11 was usable, with 11.7 a pleasure to use versus iTunes 12.1
As for OS X Snow Leopard was good, but it brought it’s bag of hurt along with it. I use Filemaker Pro regularly and Snow Leopard forced an update to Filemaker Pro as if I wanted to print I had to upgrade. OS X 10.6.5 had a feature that allowed the users to print from iPhones and iPad if they had Printer Sharing setup on a Macintosh on a wireless network. That disappeared with 10.6.6.
Also, many users were still using Power PC apps in Snow Leopard. Some because they didn’t update and some because there was no update. A poor example may be Quicken 2007. The CEO of Intuit the makers of Quicken was on Apples Board of Directors and after a major outcry they did deliver a version of Quicken 2007 that ran on the Intel only OS X 10.7 thru 10.10. Good luck finding it on their web site.
As for any user it was told to me over 25 years ago when i companied to a Software Developer that they didn’t update their software to work on the newer Macintosh Hardware. The developer asked me if the program worked when I purchased it on the Macintosh Hardware and System I had at the time. I acknowledged it did, he responded what was my complaint. He was right, his company didn’t know what Apple was going to come out with in the future and it became Economics 101. The market for their software wasn’t large enough for them to update. My loss.
Finally as users of computers, phones and tablets we always want the newest and latest update but we don’t think of the repercussions that can come along with them. Last year we were complaining about Mavericks, the year before it was Mountain Lion and the year before that Lion and believe it or not the year before on Snow Leopard. None of the OS X releases were ever perfect, if memory serves me right the least amount of updates to any of the OS X’s was at .5
Those praising Windows must not be looking at the complaints of 8.0 and 8.1. I hear more wanting Windows 7.
If I have learned anything with Operating Systems and Software Updates is to move slowly. Despite all the beta testing that everyone claims to do, problems are still found.
20 years ago I was the the IT department for a School District. One computer lab we had was used for classes almost every period of the day. One teacher requested that I do an update prior to my leaving that position in the middle of the school year. I recommended that I shouldn’t as there was too much data on the system that affected other classes and suggested that we wait till the next school year. I hadn’t been gone a couple of weeks when I was contacted for assistance as the new IT guy wiped out the server and lost all the data for all the classes. This on top of the fact that all the tape backups were missing. This long story is that everything was lost and all work for over half the year was lost.
I’ll close with given time Yosemite will get fixed, but if the fix is 10.11 I’m sure we will be complaining about it. I really tried to use Yosemite and honestly many of the features worked, but mission critical features failed and you can’t get work done with those issues. If it’s history follows prior versions of OS X things should get better with the 10.10.3 release. In Mavericks I found the 10.9.5 release has worked rather well. When I tried 10.9.0 thru 10.9.3 I had similar network and Remote Access issues that I found in Yosemite.
Sadly, don’t blame those of us who have been beta testing Yosemite. We’ve tried to get through to Apple the problems with Yosemite and they’ve either blown us off, or responded as slow as a snail, or listened and done nothing to repair the problems. Really sad.
This new concept of focusing on a consolidation and fortification, just like Snow Leopard, is an EXCELLENT idea.
In the meantime, I still use 10.9.5 Mavericks for doing all my work on all my Macs. Yosemite continues to be Not Ready For Prime Time. 🙁
I don’t believe frequent updates is the primary issue . From everything I have read, there are two issues at work.
First, Apple needs to hire more people to work on OS X and IOS . As it is now, Apple rotates engineers from iOS to OS X and other Apple projects. Its almost like “everyone to this of the boat, everyone to that side of the boat.”
Second, Tim Cook commented that he was unable to review software like Steve Jobs, therefore, he depended on the head of each project to check their own software for feature set, useability and quality. This is akin to asking book authors to proof read and edit their own work. Every author needs a good proof reader and editor. The same applies for software development.
Apple should take immediate action to increase the number of engineers permanently assigned OS X and iOS.
Second Apple should immediately search out and create teams dedicated to every major product to do the following:
Test the product for usability, feature set and quality. Assign projects to these employees to see how well this software can be used finish the assigned projects. This is what Steve Jobs used to do and that is why Apple software used to be very refined.