“The recent rounds of speculation about OS 10.11 suggest it’ll be a catchup release, in the spirit of OS 10.6 Snow Leopard back in 2009,” Gene Steinberg writes for The Tech Night Owl. “Instead of packing in loads of new features, some seemingly barely tested, Apple may focus mainly on stability, performance, and some improved under-the-hood tools for developers. OS 10.6 was considered to be the true reference release of OS X and a true successor is overdue.”
“Well, you just knew that Yosemite would only survive about a year before it was supplanted with a newer OS. OS 10.11 is expected to be demonstrated during the June 8, 2015 WWDC keynote, and Apple VP Philip Schiller is promising new technologies for developers to explore,” Steinberg writes. “That statement creates a contradiction, or maybe not.”
“I can see the wisdom, however, in Apple promising more OS stability at a developer’s event. They can couch it in terms of introducing new technologies that allow the OS to run more efficiently, using less memory, allowing things to behave in a more stable fashion,” Steinberg writes. “Perhaps there could be a Continuity 2.0 that adds to the feature set and refines existing features. That might present a politically correct way to fix what’s wrong but take the glass half-full/half-empty approach of offering it as a better version.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote, in part, back on January 5th in an open letter to Tim Cook:
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.