{"id":13232,"date":"2016-01-08T17:33:04","date_gmt":"2016-01-08T22:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=13232"},"modified":"2016-01-10T10:27:13","modified_gmt":"2016-01-10T15:27:13","slug":"six-colors-apple-report-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/08\/six-colors-apple-report-card\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Colors’ Apple Report Card"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jason Snell<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Generally, our panel praised the quality of Apple’s hardware design and reliability. As John Moltz wrote, “Apple hardware continues to be one of its great strengths.” “Better than ever,” wrote Stephen Hackett. “No one else seems close,” wrote Rich Mogull.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

If the broad perception is that hardware remains an Apple strength, here’s the flip side: the perception that Apple’s software efforts lag behind.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Serenity Caldwell framed the issue as one of focus. “iOS still feels buggy and unfinished. iPad Pro launched without any key Apple iOS apps. Too many software projects for one year.” As James Thomson wrote, “iOS and OS X are improved, but it feels that many other things are barely held together with digital string.”<\/p>\n

Other panelists were far less generous. “Software quality has really gone downhill,” wrote Khoi Vinh. “Apple’s software quality continues to drop,” wrote Adam Engst. Rob Griffiths praised iOS but had harsh words for OS X: “Longstanding seemingly ‘simple’ bugs don’t get fixed.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I agree that Apple’s hardware quality continues to be great. Aside from reverting to mDNSResponder<\/a>, I have not seen an overall improvement in software quality this year. With Mac OS X 10.11<\/a>, I’m still regularly seeing problems with Finder, Mail, Safari, Disk Utility, Preview, Calendar, Spotlight<\/a>, and Time Machine that were not present in previous versions. I hear a lot about Mail from my customers, and Mail in 10.11 overall seems to be even less reliable than in 10.10. And old bugs from 10.10 and even 10.9 remain. iOS has always been relatively less buggy for me, but it still has some annoying bugs as of 9.2<\/a>. I hear people saying that Apple kind of did a Snow Leopard in 2015, but I’m just not seeing it.<\/p>\n

Our panel’s message is clear: Apple has a lot of work to do to repair its relationship with third-party software developers. “Apple’s heading towards a crisis point,” wrote Andy Ihnatko. “In 2014, I said that I’d never seen Apple developers less happy. Things are even worse a year later[…]<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The developers on our panel specifically cited long delays to process approvals and builds, with iTunes Connect being “the least reliable this year than at any time in the last seven years,” according to James Thomson.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I agree with all of this. Swift, and the way Apple has handled its open sourcing, is mostly a bright spot, though.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jason Snell: Generally, our panel praised the quality of Apple’s hardware design and reliability. As John Moltz wrote, “Apple hardware continues to be one of its great strengths.” “Better than ever,” wrote Stephen Hackett. “No one else seems close,” wrote Rich Mogull. […] If the broad perception is that hardware remains an Apple strength, here’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[38,1143,31,1137,30,1199],"class_list":["post-13232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-apple","tag-apple-software-quality","tag-ios","tag-ios-9","tag-mac","tag-mac-os-x-10-11"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13232"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13245,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13232\/revisions\/13245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}