
Apple's had a shockingly bad week of software problems - alwillis
https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/2/16727238/apple-macos-ios-software-problems-updates
======
_arvin
I'll admit, I used to be the first to update to their latest betas, now I'm
terrified to even install the public releases.

They have to do better than this. Having a Twitter user report one of the
biggest bugs this decade? That's really weak. Releasing an update that undoes
that? Pure amateur hour by the guys we really trust with privacy. Separately,
lately they've treated me ridiculously bad (and it's _never_ been like this)
at the Apple Store on a failed logic board for my 7 Plus to no fault of my own
(saying I was 41 days out of warranty, sorry), so I called Apple Care and they
promptly took care of it for me, but should I really have had to jump through
all those hoops? Really soured me.

I'm also on 3-month long thread with an iTunes Adviser (hi Grant) trying to
convert some damn gift cards from iTunes to Apple Store. The easiest request
ever. Now he's just no longer picking up his phone, voicemail, or responding
to emails. Can't tell you the frustration involved in this (my dad had
accidentally selected Apple iTunes instead of Apple Store when redeeming his
Wells Fargo rewards)

Having said all that, I'm still support these guys - why, I don't know
anymore. That'll be changing soon, for sure.

~~~
qubex
I'll air my recent horror story: my Mac Mini Server 6,2 (2012) has two SSDs I
had welded together as a RAID-0 array. I updated from 10.12 Sierra to 10.13
High Sierra without a hitch. On 20 November I for reasons I know bitterly
regret I decided to wipe my system and reload from backups... an exercise that
usually takes six hours, max. I've run into issue after issue (High Sierra
formatting the RAID array as APFS by default and then announcing that is not a
bootable configuration, terrible RAID drivers littering my installer log with
write errors and thus refusing to restore Time Machine backups onto the array
once I reformatted it as JHFS+, and latterly some obscure kernel cache error
that precludes booting)... long story short, twelve days after the fatal
decision, my system is still not bootable.

And Apple Support is non-existent. Documentation about APFS and RAID is thin
on the ground. Phone support told me in no uncertain terms that my Mini's
number was not a Server so I could not access Enterprise Support, and of
course the consumer level folks do not know anything about RAID (or even
multi-drive systems). It's been a total shitstorm.

Never have I been so proximate to just dumping them and telling them to piss
off, but I also know I won't, because I am too deeply invested in their
integrated ecosystem (macOS, Mac Pro, MacBook, iOS, iPhone, iPad, Apple
Music...)... except I am starting to think it might make sense to tell them to
piss off integrally and voting with my feet.

~~~
justadudeama
I was like you a number of years ago (iPhone, Macbook, iMac, etc) but decided
it was time to switch rides. Google has a massive intensive to making
switching from iOS to Android as easy as possible. But I do admit, it took
some time to get used to Windows coming from a Mac, and bootcamp was not great
for me on my macbook pro.

~~~
danieldk
For someone who values their privacy at least a little bit, Google and Windows
are no options.

Outside Pixel, updates on Android are an embarrassing shit show. I did a three
year detour to Android, but never again. Update after update things were
broken until and you had to wait 6 months to get an update that was supposedly
fixing things.

As someone who considers privacy important, Linux and BSD are the only
credible alternatives to the Mac. Unfortunately, a lot of software that I use
nearly daily is missing, because the Linux ecosystem does not have a strong
ISV ecosystem (Little Snitch, OmniGraffle, Things, DeckSet, LaunchBar, Alfred,
Arq, 1Password, Tweetbot, Affinity Designer/Photos, etc.) and does not support
some hardware well (Sonos, etc.).

~~~
taohansen
the software you list shows a disinterest in considering alternatives. if
you’re already considering Linux or BSD, it behooves you to also consider open
source alternatives to your applications, especially when at least some of the
responsible companies are currently engaged in predatory business practices
(1Password).

BitWarden is a fantastic FLOSS alternative to 1Password, Emacs’ org-mode for
Things is perhaps the finest of its kind and easy to get started with with a
distro like Spacemacs, a plethora of Alfred alternatives, Marp for DeckSet, i
could go on but at this point i just want to throw up my arms and shake you.

i’ve switched dozens who were sick of proprietary lock-in. it doesn’t sound
like you’re sick enough.

~~~
danieldk
I have a Linux desktop machine at home besides a Mac and regularly try open
source alternatives. I also use org mode besides Things, and have a custom
Emacs configuration with evil, ivy, magic, and whatnot.

However, the open source alternatives for the software I mentioned (and other
software) are simply not good enough for me. The additional 'problem' is that
open source software that I use, such as Emacs, Latex, compilers, etc. work
fine on macOS.

(I used Linux and BSD full-time on the desktop from 1994-2008.)

------
bob_theslob646
>Let’s recap the week of Apple software problems:

\- macOS High Sierra critical flaw with root admin access

\- macOS High Sierra update released, but breaks file sharing

\- iOS 11 crashing on some iPhones due to a date bug

\- macOS High Sierra fix not installing correctly on some systems

-iOS 11.2 released early to fix iPhone crash bug

Yeah I would say that is a pretty bad week

~~~
Alex3917
The transition to APFS also went flawlessly, above and beyond anyone's
expectations.

~~~
mcny
Apparently, apple won't implement apfs for people on spinning rust so I can't
get it on an iMac which made upgrading to high sierra easier. How did it go
for people on macbooks?

~~~
TheCondor
You can convert those disks, they don’t do it automatically though.
Diskutility has a convert option.

~~~
kristofferR
That's a dumb idea, the file system is designed for flash memory, not spinning
disks.

------
lostgame
I honestly am about ready to go back to a 2009-era MacBook Pro or Mac Pro
tower, shove 10.9 on it and tell my clients that I've quit iOS as a platform.
It's beyond not worth it at this point. I refuse to watch my computers and
phones get shittier and shittier, and with the phones, a downgrade isn't even
possible.

Apple, you have gone from one of my favourite companies in the world, to one
of my most hated. I will never buy a new, non-upgradable, RAM-soldered-to-the-
board, overpriced, underpowered, piece of shit computer from you again. And
you can take my word on that.

------
codazoda
TLDR; Three problems have stemmed from the same bug. One patch had errors and
required more fixing for a subset of users. The complaint seems to be that
Apple moved too fast to fix this bug.

I dunno... You really need to fix something like this quickly and you might
not have time for a really good QA round; so you rush it. Could they do
better, sure.

~~~
efdee
If you don't do "really good QA", you end up causing more problems than you
fix.

~~~
coldtea
It's almost like it's a ...tradeoff.

------
mtgx
This is the result of Apple trying to become a "fashionable products company"
instead of a "premium products company".

Premium is about the whole package delivering high value - at a reasonably
high cost, too. Fashion is almost 100% about aesthetics, at a much higher
price. Not much value in relation to price except for branding and the
exclusivity aspect (which is tied to the very high prices). But fashion often
has little to do with the quality/price ratio of the product. See those
ridiculous diamond-covered $50,000 phones with 3-year old specs and OS
versions.

I believe Apple is also selling some ridiculous $17,000 smart watches now. The
similarly priced Xeon-based Mac Pros almost enter this category, too.

It's about culture and priorities inside the company. The moment I saw them
shift towards the "fashion" aspect, I knew things would start to go downhill
for Apple in terms of quality as well as _value per product_.

If they don't check and rectify their priorities soon, they're going to have
much bigger problems in the long term, maybe unfixable problems.

~~~
gaius
_This is the result of Apple trying to become a "fashionable products company"
instead of a "premium products company"._

Absolutely. Like what does "Pro" mean in Apple-speak right now? A workhorse
for serious professionals who earn their living with their tools, or the
luxury version of the regular consumer version? There's a TV ad in the UK that
says the Macbook Pro would be perfect for a first-year undergrad... That's not
who I'd imagine a real "Pro" product was aimed at.

~~~
remir
Apple should just make two laptops: Macbook and Macbook Pro.

Convert the current Macbook Air into a 13" Macbook that is more in line with
the Air's price. The Pro should be a pro machine. Plenty of ports and no touch
bar non sence, but keep the Touch ID sensor.

~~~
gaius
Crippling the Mac Mini to force people onto the Mac Pro "tower" then leaving
that to rot was likewise insane. It's like Apple have forgot they only sell
iPhones because iPhones are first-class citizens for all the content authored
and apps developed on Macs... Take away the ecosystem and the fruits will
eventually wither...

~~~
remir
I agree. I would like to see a new Mini with good specs but Apple is
uninterested in this machine, it seems.

------
chmars
APFS, although not buggy per se, also has its disadvantages:

'macOS High Sierra APFS Performance is Inferior to HFS on Apple’s Fastest SSD:
all cost, no benefit, at least not yet.'

[https://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2017/20171124_2015-macO...](https://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2017/20171124_2015-macOS-
HighSierra-FileCopySpeed.html)

~~~
Osmium
I wouldn't say _no_ benefit ... instant directory size information, instant
copies are both pretty cool.

~~~
dilap
having a more reliable filesystem is a huge benefit!

it's amazing how stuff will bitrot on HFS+.

~~~
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
How does APFS prevent bitrot? I thought it doesn’t do checksumming and error
correction, and instead passes this task on to the SSD’s memory controller.

~~~
danieldk
It checksums metadata [1]: [http://dtrace.org/blogs/ahl/2016/06/19/apfs-
part5/](http://dtrace.org/blogs/ahl/2016/06/19/apfs-part5/)

From the same article: _the engineers contend that Apple devices basically
don’t return bogus data. NAND uses extra data, e.g. 128 bytes per 4KB page, so
that errors can be corrected and detected. (For reference, ZFS uses a fixed
size 32 byte checksum for blocks ranging from 512 bytes to megabytes. That’s
small by comparison, but bear in mind that the SSD’s ECC is required for the
expected analog variances within the media.)_

~~~
dilap
wow, that's very disappointing.

------
bpicolo
They also managed to get in another autocorrect bug on a common word:

[https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/27/ios-11-autocorrect-
issu...](https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/27/ios-11-autocorrect-issue-it-to-
i-t/)

~~~
vegardx
Maybe they can even get around to fix the issue for more or less every non-US
ASCII keyboard where they seem to think character that _look_ the same, are
the same, or that they are often mistyped.

In Norwegian we have "a" and "å", they are on completely opposites ends of the
keyboard and are not used interchangeably, but they always changes one to the
other.

I've tried to contact support about it, even Google, as the problem persist on
Android as well, but they never get back to me. So I'm assuming it's working
as intentional. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
oculusthrift
in general i feel like american software companies do the bare minimum to
support other languages and don’t think past that

------
zaroth
I always assumed there would be someone standing with Tim and Jony to complete
the troika. I think it was Scott for a while, but I think they are sorely
missing the truly brilliant charismatic visionary on the software side.

~~~
cptskippy
Who would that be?

~~~
delinka
They’re missing therefore we don’t know.

------
rosstex
You are put in charge of Apple. How do you fix this?

~~~
newsbinator
The trick seems to be convincing your best engineers to work on unsexy
products that have long lifetimes.

Everybody would rather spearhead the new iPhone XI project, than spearhead the
"add 10% to the battery life on 4-year old MacBooks" project.

You'd need an incentive program to offset fame/pride. For example, "150% pay
for working on non-sexy projects" or "additional points for tangible
improvements or bug fixes to legacy code".

~~~
virgilp
> You'd need an incentive program

Also called "salary increases", "promotions" and "bonuses". Not just for the
people who do the sexy new projects. Because let's face it - you're being
rewarded far better in a corporation for releasing something new, than for
fixing something old. And keeping something old working perfectly with no
issue? Well, nobody hears about you, so probably you're not doing anything,
you're lucky if you're not fired.

(I'm exaggerating, of course; but unfortunately, not much)

------
ciconia
Is anyone else here sick and tired of sensationalistic journalism? "Shockingly
bad", "a nightmare"? It's just a fucking security bug, why can't you just
report the news in a calm, responsible manner?

~~~
thsowers
> It's just a fucking security bug

No. It's a security bug, plus a botched fix at a time when the quality of
Apple software has been lower than ever (keep in mind this macOS also had the
"Shows password as password hint" bug). Moreover, it's a sign that quality
control and internal processes at Apple are seriously lacking.

------
jacksmith21006
It is not only the bugs but look at Apple failing to get the Homepod to market
for the holiday. Something is definitely off at Apple

------
fiatpandas
Is MacOS considered “B team” internally? Curious

~~~
thsowers
Last time I checked, there was no dedicated MacOS team [0]:

> In another sign that the company has prioritized the iPhone, Apple re-
> organized its software engineering department so there's no longer a
> dedicated Mac operating system team. There is now just one team, and most of
> the engineers are iOS first, giving the people working on the iPhone and
> iPad more power.

[0]: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20/how-
apple...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20/how-apple-
alienated-mac-loyalists)

------
kmfrk
One of the really frustrating things is that it's still unclear whether
people's iOS and High Sierra installations work now.

I follow this stuff with a fair amount of interest and I'm still confused, god
help the average consumer who just followed the nagging update prompts.

------
l3robot
Still on Sierra. The High Sierra installer has been downloaded without me
knowing.. I receive an annoying weekly notification that try to make me
install High Sierra. And now all these really concerning bugs too.. it makes
it worse Apple..

~~~
carlosrg
Me too. On macOS I like to be one version behind. I still get security updates
and I get a "frozen" OS that has been tested by the entire Mac userbase for a
year. New features can wait, I choose stability.

~~~
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
It’s great macOS High Sierra uses Metal because my MacBook Pro 2014 is now
quiet when before the fan started spinning audibly in idle and annoyingly loud
under mild load. On the flipside, WindowServer is unstable and causes freezes
if the display resolution is scaled. It also causes freezes after some time
when external monitors are plugged in/plugged out. Only a restart helps. If my
15" model weren’t so noisy on Sierra, I’d change back to it.

------
ggg9990
I've never upgraded Windows before the first Service Pack, and now Mac users
are realizing that their claims that "Mac is different" were just cultish
delusion. Don't rush OS upgrades!

~~~
Feniks
Windows isn't perfect (as we all know) but at least rolling back to a previous
version is a lot easier than how macOS does it.

------
mtsmithhn
"Better" QA, more testers, more developers, etc. won't catch these types of
bugs if there isn't a test scenario which triggers the bug in the first place.

------
mbesto
Apple needs to stop releasing functionality in their major releases.
Seriously, I need more boring iOS vX.x and macOS vX.x releases that focus on
performance, space saving, and security features, not ones that redesign f'n
everything. They literally don't need any more marketing or market share, just
make existing customer happy or they'll start losing the grip they already
have.

------
ascom
I recently upgraded to High Sierra on my MacBook, and I had random reboot
problems:
[https://discussions.apple.com/message/32649321](https://discussions.apple.com/message/32649321)

Downgrading to Sierra fixed it... I still don't know what was causing the
reboots.

------
crdoconnor
"The great thing about Apple is that their stuff 'just works'".

How much longer before this meme dies?

~~~
raverbashing
> How much longer before this meme dies?

It will die when the competition makes it better, and from what I've seen the
competition seems to continue doing great at shooting themselves in the foot

Linux distros lack product vision, Windows looks like every click you make go
through 5 backward compatibility layers and a core dating from the first
Windows NT that was never refactored.

~~~
Filligree
ChromeOS fits reasonably well in this category. Unfortunately it's still too
limited to compete directly with Apple, but it's already pretty useful.

------
Overtonwindow
I keep seeing people post about that this would not have happened under Steve
Jobs. I think that's unfair. I'm not a fan of Apple corporate, or Tim Cook,
but I think in this new era they'll fix the issue, eventually, and all will be
well. Under Jobs, countless people would have been fired and I think it would
have taken considerably longer for them to admit there was a problem.

------
sorenbs
Always wait for Service Pack 2!

------
torstenvl
"When Jobs returned from his medical leave, Cook resumed his role as the
person who kept the moving parts at Apple tightly meshed and remained unfazed
by Jobs’s tantrums.... 'I’m a good negotiator, but he’s probably better than
me because he’s a cool customer,' Jobs later said. After adding a bit more
praise, he quietly added a reservation, one that was serious but rarely
spoken: 'But Tim’s not a product person, per se.'" -Steve Jobs, by Walter
Isaacson

~~~
pducks32
I’ll give Apple one full more year and see where Mac goes. Their hardware
products are truly incredible...minus Macbook /Pro. And I personally love
Apple Music over Spotify but I know many disagree.

~~~
dingo_bat
> Their hardware products are truly incredible

For example? All I see is outdated design and hardware. Only "incredible"
hardware I can think of is the new chip in iphone x.

~~~
coldtea
What "outdated design and hardware"?

The Macbook Pro is the best laptop out there as a power/battery life/build
quality combo (having to spend for a "dongle" or new USB-C cables is not a
technical concern for its technical capacity).

The iPhone X is top notch (pun intended) and has been praised in reviews all
around the world. The AirPods have been described as mostly magical by their
users (I'd add to that).

The Apple Watch is the best in its kind technologically, and has overtaken the
#1 traditional watch maker in sales (and moves more units than competitive
smart-watches). It's the only one that was deemed most accurate in its health
measurements (heart, etc) from all smartwatches too in competitive tests.

The iPad continues to be the best tablet technology wise.

So?

~~~
dingo_bat
> The Macbook Pro is the best laptop out there as a power/battery life/build
> quality combo

Says who? I think Surface book/pro and Dell XPS have caught up and in some
ways surpassed MBpro.

> The iPhone X is top notch

Don't disagree, but the hardware is nothing special. We have had this quality
and refinement in Android flagships for a couple of years now. Apple has just
caught up to the state of the art.

> The Apple Watch is the best in its kind technologically

Bullshit. Smart watches with better features, better hardware and better
battery life have existed for a long while now. The iwatch is good, but not
better than any other comparable watch out there, hardware-wise.

> The iPad continues to be the best tablet technology wise.

I think you're repeatedly conflating sales/revenue numbers with hardware and
technological superiority. MBpro, iphone x, iwatch, ipad all are very well
made and very high-tech products. They all have nice hardware. I am
particularly impressed by the face mapping tech in iphone. But all of them are
about at par with any high-end laptop, phone or tablet. In fact there are
laptops with windows hello, which work very well for face login. The Galaxy
phones pack in a lot of hardware features and have had a futuristic design
which apple has just come around to copying. There is no clear hardware
superiority in apple's products.

~~~
coldtea
> _Says who? I think Surface book /pro and Dell XPS have caught up and in some
> ways surpassed MBpro._

Reviewers, for one. Dell XPS is nowhere near the build quality of a MBPr, the
Surface Pro is close but no cigar.

> _Don 't disagree, but the hardware is nothing special._

In what way? It's the fastest smartphone available, smoking the competition.
The camera and image processing is one of the best, if not the best, on any
smartphone. AR processing. Best in class sensors. Smoking fast graphics. Most
custom designed by Apple. What else would it need? Magic unicorn engine, it
doesn't have.

> _Bullshit. Smart watches with better features, better hardware and better
> battery life have existed for a long while now._

Anything concrete -- some specific model, so that we can do a comparison for
those "better features, hardware and battery life"?

> _But all of them are about at par with any high-end laptop, phone or
> tablet._

"About at par" is the best one can say.

------
nowherecat
I've been with apple since 1995, but it seems to me that the fruit has been
rotting from the inside out for some time now and it is starting to become
very obvious. I hope they get their act together, because a real alternative
that "just works" does not yet exist.

~~~
waynecochran
Apple has succumbed to the programming culture that is pervasive everywhere
now -- "release early, release often." This isn't just an Apple problem, this
is _everywhere_. We all use less stable software.

~~~
Yetanfou
Release early/often is a mantra which fits free software development, one
where there is often a second party between the software producer and the end
user. This second party can be an integrator - Debian, Redhat, etc - or an IT
department.

Release early/often is categorically unsuitable for proprietary, closed
software development, especially for a company like Apple which directly
targets end users and has made a name for producing stuff which 'just works'.

As such I don't think Apple actually follows release early/often, they just
seem to think they can get by with less testing than they actually should.
They also have a tendency to concentrate efforts on superficial 'improvements'
while they lack the same drive to improve basic infrastructure.

------
marsrover
Tim Cook is a less technically inclined version of Steve Ballmer. He was
brought in to milk every current iteration of an Apple product until there is
nothing left. Quality be damned.

~~~
oflannabhra
This is simply false. The following things have occurred under Cooks tenure:

    
    
      - Apple Watch
      - AirPods
      - Apple Pencil
      - Apple Music
      - HomePod
      - ARKit
    

Each of those represent entirely new product categories, have captured the
majority of a pre-existing market, or have opened up entirely new use cases
for previously existing products.

Apple has significant challenges in front of them, as evidenced by this week,
and Cook shoulders the responsibility for that. But, he is not Ballmer, and
Apple had major security bugs and issues under Steve.

I hope the "Cook is Ballmer" trope will quickly die.

~~~
gaius
_Each of those represent entirely new product categories_

Smartwatches are an Apple invention? Wireless headphones are an Apple
invention?

I call shenanigans.

~~~
oflannabhra
There is an ‘or’ between each descriptive clause.

Both Apple Watch and AirPods have essentially captured their entire market.

~~~
hesarenu
Bette to explain why is great target then market capture. Else you would need
to move goal posts later. iPhone at one time captured it's market.

------
LeoJiWoo
Apple is tanking their good will with these. But more surprising Tim Cook is
the target of rage from a lot of people, more so than Apple (from my social
groups full of nontechies).

I guess that's the burden of following Steve Jobs. His personal brand was
pretty synonymous with Apple and Quality.

IMO I think Tim Cook needs to go. He's a perfectly fine CEO for most companies
but not Apple. Apple needs an opinionated CEO who is in touch with the average
American(and the normal curve). Tim Cook says things like "If you only work
for money, you will never be happy", which reveals how out of touch he is with
most Americans.

------
cocktailpeanuts
I've never participated in a class action before, but I would gladly
participate if someone ever starts one. I honestly wonder why no one is doing
a class action against Apple.

If some lawyer decides to stand up against Apple and start a class action suit
for breaking so many people's phones through iOS 11 to the point of being
unusable, I'm sure they will get a lot of supporters.

I really don't care for another iPhone and I don't like being forced to
upgrade because my current iPhone which used to work perfectly fine and is not
even an old phone is completely broken. All apps take more than ten seconds to
boot up. And I know I'm not alone because I've seen other peoples phone in
person.

There should be a crowdfunding platform for class actions like this.

~~~
ksec
forced to upgrade?

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
Is this a rhetorical question?

Yes I'm "forced to upgrade".

1\. They keep popping up those notifications and block my workflow until I
give in and upgrade to the latest iOS version.

2\. My phone is virtually unusable right now. Like I said, all apps take about
10 seconds to "launch", during which all I see is a white screen. And in many
cases it just crashes after the ten seconds. I have to reboot the app to even
get it to launch after the ten seconds of loading. I think this counts as
being "forced to upgrade" since I have no option to downgrade the OS and my
phone is unusable.

