Mark Gurman:
Following the success of OS X Snow Leopard for Macs in 2009, one of iOS 9’s standout ‘features’ will be a directed focus on stabilizing and optimizing the operating system.
[…]
For 2015, iOS 9, which is codenamed Monarch, is going to include a collection of under-the-hood improvements. Sources tell us that iOS 9 engineers are putting a “huge” focus on fixing bugs, maintaining stability, and boosting performance for the new operating system, rather than solely focusing on delivering major new feature additions. Apple will also continue to make efforts to keep the size of the OS and updates manageable, especially for the many millions of iOS device owners with 16GB devices.
Clark Goble:
The reason people have such fond memories of Snow Leopard is because they are colored by the end of its life and not its beginnings. But it’s hardly fair to compare 10.6.8 to 10.10.0 or even 10.10.2 (that just came out last week).
I do think it’s a fair criticism that upgrades started coming faster with Lion. Snow Leopard came out August 28, 2009. Lion came out July 20, 2011 nearly two years later. However Mountain Lion came out July 25, 2012, only a year later. It’s been around a year for each release since. That is we no longer have the stability of a year with a solid mature OS with most of the major bugs fixed.
In my recollection, Snow Leopard also started out with fewer bugs than Leopard.
Apple Software Quality iOS iOS 9 Mac Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
Jared Newman:
And yet, when you consider everything Microsoft has said and done over the last year, under CEO Satya Nadella, the company’s new strategy goes deeper than pushing its own services on rival platforms. What Microsoft really wants to do—and what apps like Sunrise and Acompli enable—is to create a new kind of service that sits above all the others. Essentially, it’s trying to turn its cloud competitors into dumb pipes.
[…]
In both cases, you can use those additional services regardless of who’s providing your email or calendars. The fact that you’ve hitched your wagon to iCloud mail or Google Calendar ceases to matter. Acompli’s new Outlook branding seems symbolic in that regard; to Microsoft, all email is now Outlook, even if it comes from another company’s servers.
Wayne Caswell:
Microsoft can overlay Apple and Google to add functionality, but keeping it all working well as Apple and Google evolve their own products and strengthen competitive barriers to entry will be a nightmare. These companies won’t stand still.
Matt McLarty:
The “dumb pipe” situation arises when a company gets caught between two smart endpoints. For example, telcos are continually trying to elevate themselves from dumb pipe status, but struggling in the face of companies like Apple (iPhone at one end, iTunes at the other). In this case, Microsoft is implementing the user-facing endpoint, but relying on smart endpoints like Gmail and Evernote, most likely through their APIs that have implicit terms and conditions. Those endpoints are beyond Microsoft’s control, unless they play dirty and try to hack around them, as pointed out in one of the other comments here. Very shortsighted.
Android Business Google iOS Microsoft Sunrise
