alt Hacker NewsI see comments on posts like this complaining that Apple has the money to make software as high-quality as their hardware so they must be dysfunctional.
I'm not sure it's so easy. I think you have to compromise on hardware or software and Apple makes a choice.
My whole career in embedded devices, software is always under schedule pressure from hardware. Not because hardware is sloppy or evil, but because doing new things is hard and hardware has deadlines that software doesn't.
Like, I think the lessons are that all the money in the world still can't buy you time and even Apple can't keep a lid on feature creep.
Replies
> My whole career in embedded devices, software is always under schedule pressure from hardware. Not because hardware is sloppy or evil, but because doing new things is hard and hardware has deadlines that software doesn't.
The problem is the internet made post-release patches practical, which made software deadlines more flexible, which then allows management to choose a cheaper and less rigorous QA process.
Hardware is kinda like software in 1994 (just read about console game QA from the 80s/90s): you can't realistically patch defects after release, so you can't be sloppy.
It's an illustration of why technological constraints aren't all bad, and "progress" can cause regressions.
There's a pretty big difference between embedded devices and high-end, general-purpose devices. Apple is very much the latter. Outside specific areas (like cell signal/etc) they are not constrained by hardware to the point that it inevitably impacts software quality—and the complaints people have are not about the parts of the software that are constrained! As far as I know, everybody is actually totally happy with Apple's wireless stack, power management and so on.
Now, is it possible that Apple's software issues are proximally caused by production pressure? Absolutely. That's almost definitely a major contributor. But the production pressure is not inherent to their device business; it's a choice the organization, collectively, makes.
Yes. Apple is a behemoth, heavy with layers and layers of middle management. It's pretty difficult to steer it any new direction and have everyone on board.
Apple's org chart now resembles Microsoft's org chart from this classic meme, but with far more groups: https://www.businessinsider.com/big-tech-org-charts-2011-6
I think it would need a big restructuring with strong, smart product leadership. I'm dubious they have that now, despite the image Apple PR is orchestrating in the press with Ternus as the new CEO.
> because doing new things is hard and hardware has deadlines that software doesn't.
It was nothing new tho. They broke existing software. This is caught by basic software regression test. That's engineering 101.
When you're a gatekeeper / the phone company like Apple, the expectation is that as a general purpose device, you will adhere to at least some level of quality... simply because users have no alternative.
By constantly enforcing their walled garden and making it harder to use alternatives, Apple assumes the responsibility for the quality of their software. If they can't deliver, they should make it easy to pick and choose alternatives.
Somehow Garmin is even worse than Apple in that regard. Their mobile device hardware is (generally) quite good: robust and reliable with lots of little touches that serious athletes appreciate. But somehow they just can't get their act together on the software quality side. Everyone knows not to buy a new device at launch because it will suffer from frequent software glitches and crashes which take them at least a few months to fix. And even then, new releases frequently have regression defects that break existing features. Whether this is a deliberate choice or just general incompetence I have no idea.
I don’t know. Embedded software makes things way harder on itself than is necessary by tying itself to the comparative Stone Age in terms of language, tooling, and methodology. At least in the automotive & robotics world I interact with. I can’t believe how much time is unnecessarily pissed down a hole because everyone is just stuck doing the thing they know how to cobble together today instead of reforming what they do and how they do it.
It's only a compromise on profit levels.
No one makes Apple release new products. There is a choice about the balance of releasing something and the quality of that release. Blaming that choice on anything but the people making it is nonsense.
Zero hardware changes forced springboard teams hand here.
Re: feature creep.
I wonder if Apple simply has too many employees?
It’s unfortunate that new features that no one asked for and that degrade the user experience are added to releases with increased frequency ever year.
macOS, when it was called OS X, used to get released whenever it was released. It usually had some bugs and those would be worked on over the lifetime of the release. After Steve Jobs died, Tim Cook decided to switch it up to a yearly release schedule. That was self-imposed. Since then, Apple’s software quality has been steadily declining. They have no one to blame but themselves, yearly releases is not enough time to introduce new features and polish and fix bugs in old ones. And they keep adding more operating systems, making it hard on themselves when they have proved they can’t do it.
> I'm not sure it's so easy. I think you have to compromise on hardware or software and Apple makes a choice.
No one forces Apple to stick to yearly releases. No one forces Apple to cut down on QA. No one forces Apple to prioritize shiny new poorly designed and half-baked features over system stability.
> I think you have to compromise on hardware or software and Apple makes a choice.
Why do you think that? With unlimited talent and money on either side it seems possible to do both really well without it hurting profit margin.
It was an existing software feature who's behavior was broken in an update, not a bug to do with integrating new hardware or something. There are always difficulties but I'm not sure how to connect this to a time crunch from new hardware delivery.