No question that Apple's quality has gone done. However, who's has gone up? Or better yet: Who is actually building quality software systems?
Comparing only in the same problem domains as Apple:
All of my Android devices have been rife with equivalently bad issues. Windows? Different quality issues, but just as bad. Google web systems? Same case. Better in some aspects, worse in others.
Perhaps I'm old and jaded. Still, seems like we've reached a point in software development where building quality systems is not possible with existing methodologies. Where some problems, while we are able to develop 90% solutions, the last 10% might as well be impossible.
The even more jaded part of me wonders: Does it even matter?
Windows quality has gone up significantly since XP. I no longer associate Windows with constant crashing like I used to. Android has also gotten miles better, I haven't had any weird system-related bugs in so long (the worst I've gotten is some slowness).
The main issue is that Microsoft and Android developers (I guess mainly Google) are getting their shit together (resulting in some decent software), whereas Apple software quality is in a freefall, failing in some extremely basic use cases, and has been for a while.
Desktop OSs are one thing, but in 2 years do you think iOS will be more usable than Android on comparable hardware? I already don't think so. The momentum is definitely against Apple
>> Windows quality has gone up significantly since XP. I no longer associate Windows with constant crashing like I used to.
This.
Apple's long term strategy on hardware had me getting ready to leave their ecosystem over a year ago (they discontinued the unibody Macbooks that I love so much, which were a perfect balance of size, power and end-user expandability). It didn't help that I have one of the early 2011 MBP's with the overheating and GPU issues. Mine just died over the Christmas holidays.
The only way my 2011 MBP would run without glitching and crashing was... surprise, surprise, running Windows 8.1 in Boot Camp. And in general, it felt and ran faster than OSX did.
That experiment led me to install Windows 8.1 on my 2008 Macbook -- which can't run anything newer than Lion. It was a pig, nearly unusable until I installed Windows on it, and now it's snappy enough to use daily.
While there's something to be said about Apple not looking to the past when providing OS upgrades, I think there's also something to be said about Microsoft's strategy of providing backwards compatibility to older hardware.
Updating your Android version is likely to break telephony and Android will probably never be secure for non technical users. Apple is pushing the limit with things like answering my phone on my laptop. Would someone even dare try this on Android? Maybe Apple is moving too fast, that is a matter of opinion, but they are certainly moving forward fast.
Via Google Voice/Hangouts the answering/calling of a phone through a Mac or other PC has been around before Apple's introduction of it. Also, things like SMS MightyText for Android were also things I've enjoyed on my Android/Mac combo well before Apple made it available within the OS:
Granted, I did use an iChat/AIM combo setup to text phones (and receive texts) via my Mac in the past, but it was a cumbersome utilization and didn't work with all carriers.
>Maybe Apple is moving too fast, that is a matter of opinion, but they are certainly moving forward fast.
Bugs that hinder workflow moves me backwards. And, these Mac OS and iOS bugs aren't just a matter of opinion. I don't think it's time to slam all that is Apple, but the company is overdue for some customer backlash and constructive criticism, in my opinion.
Then again, maybe this is all just bad karma from Apple completely ignoring the faulty early 2011 MacBook Pro GPU/logic board failures and not issuing a recall and replacement program as they should.
I haven't had any recent problems with iOS or OSX but I don't always agree with Apple's very opinionated design decision. I can understand why they do it but it sometimes rubs me the wrong way. The other shoe that hasn't dropped yet is security which is abysmal on Android but most users haven't noticed yet. Windows Phone could make huge inroads that way.
Precisely. One wonders exactly what Lovecraftian horrors Microsoft will have in Windows 10 that will allow them to compete with the new levels Google and Apple have reached.
The dreamy days of OS X Tiger on a G4 PowerBook now seem like they must have been figments of the imagination.
Others have said Windows. I'd say Windows Phone, too. It might be missing some things I'd like (Google stuff like Hangouts and Plus, which will likely never come) but otherwise it's a great OS, stable, fast, well designed and consistent.
If you only view the associated cost of these failures through the lens of quarterly profits, then they probably don't matter (at least in the short term).
But there has to be a point where as professionals we look at the opportunity cost of these failures and hold ourselves responsible for the damage they cause.
If you add up all the time and opportunity lost due to bugs, duplicated effort, and substandard solutions (which is nearly every piece of software today including my own) it just about makes one sick.
Apple is no more responsible for this than anyone else in the industry except for the fact that they are a platform creator. I feel that companies such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft should be held extra accountable not so much for the failure in where they have led us in the past, but our acceptance of their visions in the future.
