Apple rant... slow down with the updates

This is a rant, a general observation from my 15 years of Mac ownership usage. Apple needs to slow down with the OSX update cycle, as developers aren't getting enough time to bullet-proof their products, and by the time some semblance of reliability seeps into a program a new OSX hits the shelves and the catchup game begins again. With each release of OSX it seems this gap is widening.

As a music professional i've pretty much used the same programs for the 15 years i've used Macs. For ten years it was bliss - plug and play, without question - but since around the time of OSX 10.7 it seems in-house and third party developers are increasingly struggling to release rock solid programs for market.

I've just bitten the bullet and clean installed Mavericks onto a freshly formatted hard drive. I've also updated all my core third party software to '10.9 approved' versions. Nothing, and I mean nothing is playing ball. Programs are error ridden, spinning beach ball of death, unexpected quits, error reports to send to Apple, grey screens that won't go away without a hard restart, and a laptop I can't shut down. In my two weeks since updating to Mavericks i've faced more stability issues that I have in 15 years on the OSX platform. And you can't do anything but sit and lump it whilst programmers slowly iron out the bugs. That's not the Mac way - it never has been... until recently.

I dunno. Mac has their new corporate agenda but it seems to be squarely pitched at consumerdom than the professional market. But if things keep heading on the same trajectory into the future, I hate to say it but a Windows-based machine might become the more stable/reliable alternative... talk about a 180 of reputations!

/rant.

I don't necessarily disagree with you when it comes to the product update/upgrade cycle getting shorter & shorter compared to some older OS versions. And I agree with you...OS upgrades can be painful (hardware & software compatability)...and expensive.

But at the same time...you don't always have to upgrade to the latest & greatest.

Personally I like to wait until at least the first or second update of a new OS version before I upgrade. I don't just "jump in" with OS 10.9.0...I wait until at least 10.9.1 or 10.9.2. If I decide to upgrade at all.

I still have computers that I use on a daily basis that are still running 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8.

- Nick

Privately i've been on SL for years, IMO Apple's best ever OSX. At work there is a commercial drive to have the latest and greatest OSX and third party software - it causes a lot of frustration, but at the end of the day I have limited input toward my work's IT-related decisions and don't take it personally. But I have noticed, comparing directly to SL, each version of OSX has seemingly had flaws that aren't completely sorted before the succeeding software arrives. These flaws are snowballing, compounding. Yet Apple is so hellbent of maintaining an upward rate of change it's affecting third-party ability to develop and resolve solutions.

I guess my point is I yearn for the days when Apple was truly a plug-and-play solutions provider. Nowadays, OSX is no more user friendly than any Windows platform. Marketable product cycle seems more important than product quality.

Che_Guitarra said:

Nowadays, OSX is no more user friendly than any Windows platform. Marketable product cycle seems more important than product quality.

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OS preference is certainly an individual choice. But considering all of the malware & virus's Windows users have to deal with...I'll stick with the Mac OS.

As far as Apple hardware & OS "change cycle". If things seem to be changing way too quickly. Don't upgrade until you need to (due to either hardware or software incompatibilities)...or new OS versions that have features you "just got to have"!

- Nick

I do see where he is coming from especially with Developers. Us normal users can just use the older version and wait for things to be stable, but Devs have to make their software compatible with the latest or get left behind as most of the Apple faithful upgrade every time a new version hits the market.

I also agree that 10.6 Snow Leopard was probably the most stable release ever.

Each release since 10.7 has been for the most part, minor feature releases. This is why Apple didn't charge a significant amount as they did with 10.5 , 10.4 and prior. 3rd party developers haven't really needed to reinvent the wheel since 10.6 because the underlying architecture has by and large remained the same. In other words, what ran on 10.7, runs fine on 10.8, 10.9, etc and probably will for the foreseeable future.

I just don't see what the big fuss is as long as the changes aren't earth-shattering. It's one thing to.... say.... eliminate PowerPC support, or switch the default kernel mode over to 64-bit, but I don't see much in the way of those kinds of changes happening again for some time.

There has been a lot of scuttlebutt about Apple switching OS X over to ARM. They'd be nuts to do that, but even if they do, they're still at least a few (3+) years out from that IMO...

I see a very large change from 10.6-10.7 in the way the OS works on machines here. Very noticeable on every machine here. After 10.7 I agree but seen changes mess up a lot of apps.

dtravis7 said:

I see a very large change from 10.6-10.7 in the way the OS works on machines here. Very noticeable on every machine here. After 10.7 I agree but seen changes mess up a lot of apps.

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Agreed. 10.7 was a major change for a few different reasons - firstly, they did away with Rosetta. Secondly, they made a fundamental shift over to 64-bit, as I recall (i.e. all 64-bit kexts). But since then, it's been more about UI tweaks and more novel changes than anything.

But yeah, if you had just gotten done retooling your app for 10.5, then again for 10.6, and again for 10.7, I can see where you'd be ticked. But it shouldn't have been much of a change following 10.7.

pigoo3 said:

But at the same time...you don't always have to upgrade to the latest & greatest.

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This. OS X, as far back as Lion, is still supported and most software still runs on it. If stability is a huge concern, sticking with those versions that have had time to mature might be your best route.

cwa107 said:

There has been a lot of scuttlebutt about Apple switching OS X over to ARM.

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Normally I'd say that this was a ridiculous rumour that needed to die but over the last two years, this has looked more and more like a better proposition. ARM chips seem to be getting better at performance quicker than x86 chips are at being more efficient. Beyond that, Apple could make their own chips which would save them money (fiscal incentive) and gives them more control over their own devices. Given that 64-bit ARM chips exist and are multicored, I can see this maybe being a reality down the road.

Perhaps ARM will be down the road, but I think that the resurgence of OSX and Apple in general in the laptop market has come because they moved to Intel, which let folks who needed Windows and wanted to run it natively (not in an emulator) get into the Apple environment. Moving away from Intel would then close that doorway. I think that's not a good plan for Apple.

vansmith said:

Normally I'd say that this was a ridiculous rumour that needed to die but over the last two years, this has looked more and more like a better proposition. ARM chips seem to be getting better at performance quicker than x86 chips are at being more efficient. Beyond that, Apple could make their own chips which would save them money (fiscal incentive) and gives them more control over their own devices. Given that 64-bit ARM chips exist and are multicored, I can see this maybe being a reality down the road.

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Agreed. I can see that happening down the road also and not just with Apple.

MacInWin said:

Perhaps ARM will be down the road, but I think that the resurgence of OSX and Apple in general in the laptop market has come because they moved to Intel, which let folks who needed Windows and wanted to run it natively (not in an emulator) get into the Apple environment. Moving away from Intel would then close that doorway. I think that's not a good plan for Apple.

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A fair point but remember, MS has built Windows for ARM so it doesn't close the door completely.