I wish they put this level of care into their software. It's pretty shocking how nice their hardware has remained, while basic apps like Music/Photos etc. continue to decay.
I agree that as a power user I might tend to notice bugs more often, but when there is no relevant error message for the normies, to even bother looking up; it takes a really deep breath for me to remind myself why android aināt a thing I would want to go back to.
I guess, I got into the ecosystem a bit later than its prime time where things apparently had better software quality in the walled swamp.
I really donāt understand the criticism of Appleās software.
I think we need to keep in mind a couple of things:
1. Itās software designed for the masses. Itās not intended to be a power userās playground.
2. Thereās no such thing as perfect software. If you really look hard for alternatives to the Music or Photos app (to use your examples), itās actually extremely difficult to find anything that is without compromise, bugs, or other downsides.
As someone who has moved off of many of Appleās apps, like my move from iCloud Photos to Ente, Iām really still accepting a decent amount of compromises. Itās better in some ways, worse in others.
And then thereās some other apps where I just canāt find a good alternative. Iād love something like Apple Notes but is cross-platform with a Linux app specifically. Thereās just basically nothing like that out there, certainly not at a good price, and most of them end up over-complicated or with a strange UI.[1]
And when we step back and look at how many apps Apple makes itās mind-boggling, and really, most of them are at least a mild āgood.ā
[1] Closest Iāve found are Craft and Zoho Notebook. Zoho gets the price right, itās dirt cheap, and has a Linux app (though itās basically a web app). Zoho bothers me for being ugly though. Craft is slick on iOS with a web app only on desktop, but itās pricey if you leave the free tier. For my criteria itās important that the apps support sharing, collaboration, and notifications when the other person updates a note. Iām honestly not sure if these two alternatives hit every requirement because I gave on both pretty quick and accepted being stuck in Apple Notes for now. Going to iCloud.com on my Linux system isnāt horrible.
I just donāt really agree with the idea that Appleās apps are crashing and memory leaking all over the place, and if they are, not more than the median application.
For one thing, the power user crowd tends to babysit their activity monitor and get massively upset when an electron app dares to consume memory.
In my mind, the only thing that matters for non-server apps is whether or not the user experience is good. Memory consumption is just a number. Apple doesnāt even advertise how much memory many of their products have on them. They expect that their users donāt have to think about that, and as long as that remains true, I really donāt mind if Apple Music is eating up 2GB of RAM behind the scenes.
I donāt really think itās something to agree or not agree on. This is the experience Iāve had as an Apple user. I use their products extensively and like them quite a bit. The issues Iāve seen I deem unacceptable for a company of this caliber. Iām not talking about .6 seconds of load time or absolute customization. Iām talking about FaceTime actually switching when I click the button. Apple Music not leaking memory. Basic usability not niche items.
Now unfortunately apples stuff is usually a cut above other software Iāve used but in my opinion is nowhere near as good as it should be.
I guess Iām not understanding the standard here. Youāre saying theyāre usually a cut above other software but simultaneously their software quality is unacceptable.
I donāt even really disagree with the negative experiences youāve had, Iām just more saying that those experiences are inevitable in software. Being above average is about as good as Apple has ever been.
And I think that standard is also true with hardware. A lot of their hardware is supremely overrated. The MacBook Pro has a sharp edge that cuts into your wrist and has a gigantic notch on the screen.
2. Iāve had better luck with Apple software but Iād still categorize it as ābadā relative to the good software Iāve interacted with.
This is a form for software engineers. In the 90ās users accepted things like applications crashing due to lack of memory protection in the OS. We know to expect better.
Again Iām not asking for some alternate reality version of software. Iām asking them to fix clear issues that they do not seem to care about.
Not to mention Apple is a large engineering organization with plenty of talent. The software dosent need to be bug free but I shouldnāt run into as many issues as I do.
Some other fun ones:
Finder locking up and refusing to minimize
FaceTime putting me in a call with ātestingā when I switch devices
Safariās extension icon flashing on and off on iOS
Stalling on the lock screen despite me looking directly at the phone to unlock it
To me these are issues that should not make it past the engineers and layers of testing.
The problem as I see it is
not crashes and leaks. Itās that basic features are barely functional and the UI is not very usable.
Stupid examples from recently:
- The iOS 27 Preview appās search feature appears to be present while in markup mode but missing while not in markup mode (this is quite reproducible for me).
- Mobile Safari regularly gets into a state where the overlay showing the current website domain gets stuck obscuring an important part of the site.
- On MacOS if you accidentally switch desktops you cannot switch back until the animation from the first switch finishes.
Spotlight is still hilariously bad.
The MacOS Music appās AirPlay controls are barely functional.
- If you have an excessive number of desktop apps open, finding the one you want is gratuitously difficult. Sure, the bottom dock widget is pretty, but that doesnāt make it efficient.
- While typing this message, multiple d different glitchy UI elements have appeared and disappeared.
- On iOS, if the keyboard is showing and you donāt want it, tough luck.
> I just donāt really agree with the idea that Appleās apps are crashing and memory leaking all over the place, and if they are, not more than the median application.
Apple has some amazing engineering in the basic OS layer and the UI kit, but everything on top of it is just bad. E.g. it now takes about 5 seconds to "Privacy & Security" in the system settings, and I can see a visible delay when switching between sections (e.g. to "Screen Time").
Network settings are just embarrassing at this point - you can't sort the WiFi networks by name when looking at the saved settings!
Time Machine has been a disaster zone for the last 20 years. The keyboard navigation experience in macOS is a disgrace, worse than Win3.11 The virtualization experience of macOS sucks, and there is no support for containers (even Windows has them!).
How much better is Apple hardware compared to the median? I donāt really think the iPhone is better than most Chinese brand phones. It charges slower and doesnāt have the latest battery technology. Most of what it makes it better than the competition is the software.
This angelās halo around Apple was always a marketing illusion. They make above average hardware and above average software. Nothing more, nothing less.
The incredible engineering in the hardware is prized above software quality.
For most companies I'd say this is a natural tradeoff, but Apple has so much money that they can actually afford to be world class in both. Or at least, you'd expect they could. Maybe being world class in software would require delays to the hardware side of the business?
Regardless, it's definitely a weakness of the culture and I'd venture that weakness is why Apple has essentially failed at AI.
Having recently worked at Apple on the software side, my general experience was that it was fiefdom driven, there is no internal standardization on quality or process. Low level teams compete on ideas and careful politicking usually wins over quality or merit.
For AI, there were top down directives to find new ways to experiment with and incorporate into core products and processes, but as you went down the management chain, management became more conservative. First and second line managers were strongly incentivized to keep their products, roadmaps, and interfaces stable and predictable by similarly conservative stakeholders. And as such, they were generally unwilling to officially dedicate much effort to AI other than the minimum ālook at how much weāre using Claudeā.
In particular due to the lack of central tooling, any team trying to do much with AI essentially had to reinvent much of the stack themselves. So even small projects were largely untenable due to inevitable required scope creep.
IMO the barriers to entry are just much different, and itās reflecting in the workforce. Thereās cultural differences too, but I think the education differences is the biggest cause.
Nah. Thatās not it. Software is just legitimately harder than most physical engineering (notice I didnāt say all).
How often do skyscrapers fall over, or bridges collapse, or your CPUs fail unexpectedly, or submarines implode. Rarely. In fact, I bet most people reading this thought of the same few examples.
Then look at software. When is the last time you encountered a bug? Have you ever heard of bug free software? Even at the elite, smartest, most educated levels of software, there are still bugs everywhere. Humans are essentially incapable of writing bug free software. And it isnāt because a bunch of uneducated dummies that didnāt get degrees are the ones writing it (as you arrogantly implied). Itās because itās way fucking harder to do perfectly or near perfectly.
That doesnāt mean there isnāt incredibly hard physical engineering. Obviously there is insanely difficult engineering in nearly any variety. But if you ask a civil engineer to design you a perfect bridge, they probably will. Ask a software engineer with all the experience and education in the world to build you a perfect podcasting app, it simply isnāt happening.
Not who you are responding to, but common workflows like āshow me the picture I just tookā or ācopy the damned image file elsewhereā are completely broken.
God help you if you own a camera and try to store its photos in apple photos.
If the last decade of Siri has taught us anything, they can literally ship the worst version of a thing and people will still buy an iphone. Theyāre just that good.
A guy I knew was a mechanical engineer for Apple, did some really innovative stuff. The level of care and detail and attention they give to every element is like nothing you've ever seen. A good dude and was one of the best engineers I ever met but the pressure and the corporate games made him a permanent emotional headcase!
The High Yield YouTube channel has a good early look at die shots of the new A20 chip used in the iPhone Duo and discussion of the changes from the prior generations.
I wish they put this level of care into their software. It's pretty shocking how nice their hardware has remained, while basic apps like Music/Photos etc. continue to decay.
ājust worksā, my ass.
I agree that as a power user I might tend to notice bugs more often, but when there is no relevant error message for the normies, to even bother looking up; it takes a really deep breath for me to remind myself why android aināt a thing I would want to go back to. I guess, I got into the ecosystem a bit later than its prime time where things apparently had better software quality in the walled swamp.
I really donāt understand the criticism of Appleās software.
I think we need to keep in mind a couple of things:
1. Itās software designed for the masses. Itās not intended to be a power userās playground.
2. Thereās no such thing as perfect software. If you really look hard for alternatives to the Music or Photos app (to use your examples), itās actually extremely difficult to find anything that is without compromise, bugs, or other downsides.
As someone who has moved off of many of Appleās apps, like my move from iCloud Photos to Ente, Iām really still accepting a decent amount of compromises. Itās better in some ways, worse in others.
And then thereās some other apps where I just canāt find a good alternative. Iād love something like Apple Notes but is cross-platform with a Linux app specifically. Thereās just basically nothing like that out there, certainly not at a good price, and most of them end up over-complicated or with a strange UI.[1]
And when we step back and look at how many apps Apple makes itās mind-boggling, and really, most of them are at least a mild āgood.ā
[1] Closest Iāve found are Craft and Zoho Notebook. Zoho gets the price right, itās dirt cheap, and has a Linux app (though itās basically a web app). Zoho bothers me for being ugly though. Craft is slick on iOS with a web app only on desktop, but itās pricey if you leave the free tier. For my criteria itās important that the apps support sharing, collaboration, and notifications when the other person updates a note. Iām honestly not sure if these two alternatives hit every requirement because I gave on both pretty quick and accepted being stuck in Apple Notes for now. Going to iCloud.com on my Linux system isnāt horrible.
I disagree. They deserve the criticism. Among things software is one of the few things we should get correct.
I donāt think anyone is asking for the world I just want software that dosent crash and makes sense to use.
Just a couple weeks ago Apple Music was leaking GBs of memory.
I just donāt really agree with the idea that Appleās apps are crashing and memory leaking all over the place, and if they are, not more than the median application.
For one thing, the power user crowd tends to babysit their activity monitor and get massively upset when an electron app dares to consume memory.
In my mind, the only thing that matters for non-server apps is whether or not the user experience is good. Memory consumption is just a number. Apple doesnāt even advertise how much memory many of their products have on them. They expect that their users donāt have to think about that, and as long as that remains true, I really donāt mind if Apple Music is eating up 2GB of RAM behind the scenes.
I donāt really think itās something to agree or not agree on. This is the experience Iāve had as an Apple user. I use their products extensively and like them quite a bit. The issues Iāve seen I deem unacceptable for a company of this caliber. Iām not talking about .6 seconds of load time or absolute customization. Iām talking about FaceTime actually switching when I click the button. Apple Music not leaking memory. Basic usability not niche items.
Now unfortunately apples stuff is usually a cut above other software Iāve used but in my opinion is nowhere near as good as it should be.
I guess Iām not understanding the standard here. Youāre saying theyāre usually a cut above other software but simultaneously their software quality is unacceptable.
I donāt even really disagree with the negative experiences youāve had, Iām just more saying that those experiences are inevitable in software. Being above average is about as good as Apple has ever been.
And I think that standard is also true with hardware. A lot of their hardware is supremely overrated. The MacBook Pro has a sharp edge that cuts into your wrist and has a gigantic notch on the screen.
1. Much of the software I interact with is bad.
2. Iāve had better luck with Apple software but Iād still categorize it as ābadā relative to the good software Iāve interacted with.
This is a form for software engineers. In the 90ās users accepted things like applications crashing due to lack of memory protection in the OS. We know to expect better.
Again Iām not asking for some alternate reality version of software. Iām asking them to fix clear issues that they do not seem to care about.
Not to mention Apple is a large engineering organization with plenty of talent. The software dosent need to be bug free but I shouldnāt run into as many issues as I do.
Some other fun ones: Finder locking up and refusing to minimize
FaceTime putting me in a call with ātestingā when I switch devices
Safariās extension icon flashing on and off on iOS
Stalling on the lock screen despite me looking directly at the phone to unlock it
To me these are issues that should not make it past the engineers and layers of testing.
I donāt think this is unreasonable do you?
The problem as I see it is not crashes and leaks. Itās that basic features are barely functional and the UI is not very usable.
Stupid examples from recently:
- The iOS 27 Preview appās search feature appears to be present while in markup mode but missing while not in markup mode (this is quite reproducible for me).
- Mobile Safari regularly gets into a state where the overlay showing the current website domain gets stuck obscuring an important part of the site.
- On MacOS if you accidentally switch desktops you cannot switch back until the animation from the first switch finishes.
Spotlight is still hilariously bad.
The MacOS Music appās AirPlay controls are barely functional.
- If you have an excessive number of desktop apps open, finding the one you want is gratuitously difficult. Sure, the bottom dock widget is pretty, but that doesnāt make it efficient.
- While typing this message, multiple d different glitchy UI elements have appeared and disappeared.
- On iOS, if the keyboard is showing and you donāt want it, tough luck.
> I just donāt really agree with the idea that Appleās apps are crashing and memory leaking all over the place, and if they are, not more than the median application.
Apple has some amazing engineering in the basic OS layer and the UI kit, but everything on top of it is just bad. E.g. it now takes about 5 seconds to "Privacy & Security" in the system settings, and I can see a visible delay when switching between sections (e.g. to "Screen Time").
Network settings are just embarrassing at this point - you can't sort the WiFi networks by name when looking at the saved settings!
Time Machine has been a disaster zone for the last 20 years. The keyboard navigation experience in macOS is a disgrace, worse than Win3.11 The virtualization experience of macOS sucks, and there is no support for containers (even Windows has them!).
I can continue for a long time.
> "and if they are, not more than the median application."
Comparing against the median means you've already thoroughly missed the point.
How much better is Apple hardware compared to the median? I donāt really think the iPhone is better than most Chinese brand phones. It charges slower and doesnāt have the latest battery technology. Most of what it makes it better than the competition is the software.
This angelās halo around Apple was always a marketing illusion. They make above average hardware and above average software. Nothing more, nothing less.
Apple used to have maintenance releases. They used to be known for their taste.
They should absolutely cop the criticism. Itās not like they donāt have the resources to make their software better.
The incredible engineering in the hardware is prized above software quality.
For most companies I'd say this is a natural tradeoff, but Apple has so much money that they can actually afford to be world class in both. Or at least, you'd expect they could. Maybe being world class in software would require delays to the hardware side of the business?
Regardless, it's definitely a weakness of the culture and I'd venture that weakness is why Apple has essentially failed at AI.
Having recently worked at Apple on the software side, my general experience was that it was fiefdom driven, there is no internal standardization on quality or process. Low level teams compete on ideas and careful politicking usually wins over quality or merit.
For AI, there were top down directives to find new ways to experiment with and incorporate into core products and processes, but as you went down the management chain, management became more conservative. First and second line managers were strongly incentivized to keep their products, roadmaps, and interfaces stable and predictable by similarly conservative stakeholders. And as such, they were generally unwilling to officially dedicate much effort to AI other than the minimum ālook at how much weāre using Claudeā.
In particular due to the lack of central tooling, any team trying to do much with AI essentially had to reinvent much of the stack themselves. So even small projects were largely untenable due to inevitable required scope creep.
Big E Engineering vs little e engineering.
IMO the barriers to entry are just much different, and itās reflecting in the workforce. Thereās cultural differences too, but I think the education differences is the biggest cause.
Nah. Thatās not it. Software is just legitimately harder than most physical engineering (notice I didnāt say all).
How often do skyscrapers fall over, or bridges collapse, or your CPUs fail unexpectedly, or submarines implode. Rarely. In fact, I bet most people reading this thought of the same few examples.
Then look at software. When is the last time you encountered a bug? Have you ever heard of bug free software? Even at the elite, smartest, most educated levels of software, there are still bugs everywhere. Humans are essentially incapable of writing bug free software. And it isnāt because a bunch of uneducated dummies that didnāt get degrees are the ones writing it (as you arrogantly implied). Itās because itās way fucking harder to do perfectly or near perfectly.
That doesnāt mean there isnāt incredibly hard physical engineering. Obviously there is insanely difficult engineering in nearly any variety. But if you ask a civil engineer to design you a perfect bridge, they probably will. Ask a software engineer with all the experience and education in the world to build you a perfect podcasting app, it simply isnāt happening.
Out of curiosity, whatās wrong with photos? Do you mean the one on the Mac or the iOS version?
I find manually tagging people in photos and especially videos to be an incredibly frustrating experience on macOS (and impossible on iOS).
For as much as Apple is pushing memories in Photos it is surprising to me that the ability to specify who is in a photo/video is so overlooked.
Not who you are responding to, but common workflows like āshow me the picture I just tookā or ācopy the damned image file elsewhereā are completely broken.
God help you if you own a camera and try to store its photos in apple photos.
whatās the problem? i keep thousands of photos from my camera on icloud and it works fine
Very confused, both these functions work fine for me. The share sheet is right there.
even books has somehow gotten worse. How do you regress fucking books, bro?? It's a damn shame.
If the last decade of Siri has taught us anything, they can literally ship the worst version of a thing and people will still buy an iphone. Theyāre just that good.
A guy I knew was a mechanical engineer for Apple, did some really innovative stuff. The level of care and detail and attention they give to every element is like nothing you've ever seen. A good dude and was one of the best engineers I ever met but the pressure and the corporate games made him a permanent emotional headcase!
He left to OpenAI, didn't he?
Wait until you see how non-Apple hardware innovates... that Apple then copies.
Like what?
The High Yield YouTube channel has a good early look at die shots of the new A20 chip used in the iPhone Duo and discussion of the changes from the prior generations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8bxkCKNiuA
They have a similar video comparing the M6 to the M5.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uA7WLmlg1kM
Apple is sherlocking the "iphone xxxx teardown" websites