
Ask HN: Why does High Sierra break so much stuff? - montrose
I keep seeing reports of stuff breaking as a result of upgrading to High Sierra. Does anyone know why this new version of the OS breaks so many different things?
======
foobarchu
This happens with every release of OSX, it's why most long time OSX users are
so cautious about upgrading when a new version arrives. Here are a few
examples.

Yosemite: [https://fieldguide.gizmodo.com/the-worst-bugs-in-os-x-
yosemi...](https://fieldguide.gizmodo.com/the-worst-bugs-in-os-x-yosemite-and-
how-to-fix-them-1652690924)

Mavericks: [https://www.wired.com/2013/10/mavericks-issues-and-
fixes/](https://www.wired.com/2013/10/mavericks-issues-and-fixes/)

El Capitan: [https://www.imobie.com/support/mac-os-x-probelms-and-
solutio...](https://www.imobie.com/support/mac-os-x-probelms-and-
solutions.htm)

Personally, I remember this as far back as the first upgrade I participated
in, from Leopard to Snow Leopard:
[http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/backstage/comments/problems...](http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/backstage/comments/problems-
with-mac-os-x-10.6-snow-leopard-join-the-sizable-minority)

I had trouble finding lists of Sierra's issues due to naming conflicts with
High Sierra, but off the top of my head I think that was the version that
broke Homebrew's permissions scheme, requiring manual intervention on the part
of many users.

~~~
mamcx
So is a long trend:

[https://macperformanceguide.com/topics/topic-
AppleCoreRot.ht...](https://macperformanceguide.com/topics/topic-
AppleCoreRot.html)

Is a interesting tesis...

------
Terretta
_An alternative explanation, likely unsatisfactory, but possibly correlated to
continued growth of social media such as this very site:_

Stanford linguistics professor Arnold Zwicky coined [the term "frequency
illusion"] in 2006 to describe the syndrome in which a concept or thing you
just found out about suddenly seems to crop up everywhere. It’s caused, he
wrote, by two psychological processes.

The first, selective attention, kicks in when you’re struck by a new word,
thing, or idea; after that, you unconsciously keep an eye out for it, and as a
result find it surprisingly often.

The second process, confirmation bias, reassures you that each sighting is
further proof of your impression that the thing has gained overnight
omnipresence.

–"There's a Name for That: The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon..."

[https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/153166/what-
is-t...](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/153166/what-is-the-term-
for-when-you-become-more-aware-of-something#153171)

~~~
snowwrestler
I think there is another psychological factor at work, which is that people
feel more critical toward, or at least more free to express criticism of, very
successful people or orgs.

When Apple was struggling for success against Microsoft a decade ago, it
seemed like a lot of tech folks gave them a pretty big benefit of the doubt.
OS releases had problems then, but the reaction was usually balanced by a
sense of, "this is progress though."

Now that they are the most valuable company in the world, there's not really
any benefit of the doubt anymore.

I think a similar effect was at work in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The widespread assumption was that Clinton was by far the stronger candidate,
so there was very little benefit of the doubt for anything.

~~~
scarface74
In 2008, Apple wasn't exactly struggling. The iPod reached its peak in
December 2008, the iPhone had just been released and it had a market cap of
$500 billion.

[https://appleinsider.com/articles/13/12/02/apple-inc-
valuati...](https://appleinsider.com/articles/13/12/02/apple-inc-valuation-
passes-500-billion-half-the-market-cap-imagined-last-year)

------
wlll
I have a mid 2014 Macbook Pro (top of the line, discrete GPU and all) and some
recent update has made it really slow (not the Meltdown updates, something
before that). It now takes an age to switch workspaces, to load the task
switcher, to change applications etc. Stuff also seems to go wrong more. App
crashes, iTunes refusing to open, Finder crashing etc.

The annoying thing is I tried to upgrade to a new Macbook Pro, but I just
couldn't get on with the new machine (I detailed my thoughts here
[https://blog.willj.net/2017/08/14/why-i-returned-my-
macbook-...](https://blog.willj.net/2017/08/14/why-i-returned-my-macbook-
pro/)).

I feel like Apple are pushing me away. My mac is still better for me than a
Linux machine, but it's getting close now.

The thing with this is that I don't really think Apple cares that much. Apple
is a phone company now, and OS X and Macs feel like an afterthought.

It wouldn't surprise me if in the next few years Apple slowly winds down all
things Mac. Marketing, updates, upgrades etc. and while doing that makes XCode
Windows compatible.

~~~
codycraven
Maybe you should replace the battery

~~~
wlll
It's plugged into the mains, but regardless, Apple replaced the battery a
couple of months ago, currently has only 19 charge cycles.

------
gkgicccj
Simple answer - no money in osx, it's all in ios.

~~~
gargravarr
Tragically I think this is the answer - all of Apple's talented developers
have most likely shunted over to iOS and the quality of macOS has been left to
rot.

What's infuriating is that High Sierra, as referenced in its naming scheme, is
supposed to be _minor improvements_ on top of plain Sierra, but it breaks so
many things that I am drawn to compare it to Vista - half-baked, unfinished,
should never have been released. And yet Apple have previously managed good
releases like this - Snow Leopard (my all-time favourite OS) and Mountain Lion
were successful. High Sierra is a train wreck. I am holding all company
laptops back from upgrading because I can't trust the thing.

~~~
zbentley
> all of Apple's talented developers have most likely shunted over to iOS

This gets trotted out a lot, but I have trouble believing it. I don't think
Apple considers developers to be in short supply--and if they do, it's very
stupid of them and they should reexamine that thinking.

I know that demand > supply for skilled developers right now, but Apple has
_enormous_ amounts of money in the bank. They can't use a tiny fraction of
that to get themselves more, or better developers? I doubt that shareholders
would notice/care if a few millions of dollars went towards a hiring blitz
for, say, 100 really good engineers with salaries so competitive that Apple
could poach them from wherever else they work.

I'm not saying that "throw bodies at the problem" is always a good solution,
but Apple can easily afford to throw _really, really talented bodies_ around,
and if short-staffing is their problem, it seems like the solution is obvious.

Am I missing something here? Would adding a bunch of beyond-competitive senior
developer salaries dent Apple's numbers more than I think they would? Are
there really just not that many developers willing and able to work on this at
any price? If not, is the problem with "willing" or with "able"?

~~~
gargravarr
I'm not saying Apple themselves have shunted the developers, I'm thinking that
the developers themselves have moved jobs of their own accord since they see
no future in macOS. It's been obvious for a while now that Apple only
considers iDevices as their money-spinners. Their actual computers have been
long neglected, and their updates for the last several years have been to
include more iDevice-like features, so I would think the macOS developers
would willingly believe Apple themselves aren't wholeheartedly behind
maintaining their desktop OS. It just feels like there is very little
willingness from Apple to build a good desktop OS any more, and no sense
hiring macOS developers as a result.

------
chmaynard
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, there was a huge backlog of bugs
and deferred maintenance in system software, presumably because resources had
been diverted to the failed Copeland project. Jobs addressed the problem
immediately, and the result was a series of very solid OS releases, starting
with System 8 in July 1997. Ironically, Apple seems to have come full circle.
If Apple has their priorities straight, this year they will invest a chunk of
their repatriated cash in Mac software.

~~~
scarface74
Jobs returned to Apple in July 1997, the same month that Mac OS 8 was
introduced. Jobs had no real interest in Mac OS before OS X. He used a
computer running NeXT until OS X came out.

------
bsvalley
Been there done that. A real solution would be to stop hiring new developers,
to reduce the size of the current dev team, to reduce the size and
responsibility of the QA team in order to force developers to test their own
code. To eliminate any new feature requirements, to prioritze regression
testing (migration, update, etc) and to allocate a whole release to trim the
pile of bugs in radar.

Why Apple can’t do that? 1. Pressure from investors “we want to see new
stuff”. 2. If they stop hiring new “talents” that would benefit other
companies including competitors. 3. You can’t hire good developers and ask
them to fix bugs for a year because they would run away from you which would
compromize 1. And 2.

It is a tough problem for Apple it ain’t easy to fix. In other words, Apple
needs a Steve Jobs. It needs to focus and disconnect from the world for a
little while no matter the short term consequences. If you’re confident enough
you’re doing the right thing for your customers, it’ll pay off in the long
run.

~~~
zbentley
> You can’t hire good developers and ask them to fix bugs for a year because
> they would run away from you

Really? I've never experienced that in the workplace. However, I'm not that
widely travelled and not in SV, so I guess I'd be "unsurprised but depressed"
to learn that this degree of idiotic entitlement is common. And idiotic is
exactly what it is: truly quality software is the product of lots and lots of
bugfixing. It's like the "10% inspiration/90% perspiration" thing, but for
initial development and bugfix/gradual improvement work. Especially on huge
(OS-sized) software, people hiring on should not be surprised that this is the
bulk of their day-to-day.

I get that greenfield development is more fun up front. I just (perhaps
naïvely) hope that most professionals understand that a) "fun" and "good for
the product" aren't the same thing, and b) that it can also be very personally
rewarding to spend a long time fixing bugs (yours or others') and see the
quality of/user happiness with a product noticeably increase.

Also, I think being able to say "I fix bugs to maintain _an operating system
used by millions_ " is at least as rewarding as being able to say "I make
buggy websites for startups whose marketing buzz reaches millions".

~~~
bsvalley
I think we're on the same page. I was simply highlighting things I witnessed
from my past experience. Bugs (in Mac OS) get really nasty sometimes and
frustrating for the most part. It is brain consuming and the reward isn't
always worth the energy spent. Management doesn't even reward bug fixing
unlike the "new" stuff. Ask any dev from that specific team (or even iOS team)
to fix bugs for a whole year and you'll see the reaction. Some actually do
because of a "lower" global performance at work. You can easily get assigned
on bugs over "new" stuff if you don't hustle 24/7 but that's a whole new topic
:)

But to add up to my previous comment - only a few people get to implement new
stuff each year, they don't test their code and fall under very tight
deadlines, so they produce buggy stuff. This generates tones of new bugs
constantly tracked by QA (QA doesn't fix anything, they just report problems),
bugs quickly pill-up in Radar and developers are already assigned onto
something else. Most of the bugs reported by customers are duplicates...
they're usually already tracked, either not assigned yet or simply lower
priority than something else. So what it the problem? Well, everything I
mentioned ;)

~~~
zbentley
I think we agree as well; my reply was meant to speculate on whether anti-
maintenance sentiment comes from developers or higher up (culture etc.).

> Management doesn't even reward bug fixing

I think that's the moral of the story. It's not that developers are childish,
stamp their feet, and refuse to do bugfix work; it's that they're incentivized
to not do it.

------
dddw
I find this all quite hilarious, seeming I'm running this on a 2009 white
Macbook running on High Sierra, running like a dream. Granted I only use it
for some media stuff, but it works great on this oldest supported device for
HS by Apple. Yes I had to bump the HDD to SSD and RAM to 8GB, but it is still
usable.

