{"id":52418,"date":"2026-06-26T13:22:52","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T17:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=52418"},"modified":"2026-06-26T13:22:52","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T17:22:52","slug":"if-you-cant-stand-by-a-feature-you-shouldnt-launch-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/26\/if-you-cant-stand-by-a-feature-you-shouldnt-launch-it\/","title":{"rendered":"“If You Can’t Stand By a Feature, You Shouldn’t Launch It.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jason Snell<\/a>, on The Talk Show:<\/p>\n

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[… Apple] decides to do a big feature. The circus comes to town, they build the feature, they launch it, they leave town, and that feature sits there. <\/p>\n

And the problem is, there’s bugs, things are broken, and in Year Two, you’re like, “You’re going to fix all the things that were broken in the thing you shipped last year, right?” And in the last decade, I would say, a lot of times what happens is they just don’t. And if you’re lucky, they’ll fix it Year Three or Year Four, […] give it a polish.<\/p>\n

The thing that troubles me most about Apple software quality in general is the feeling like they don’t have the people to own<\/em> the thing that they launch. They build the thing that they launch, and then those people go off and do something else, and nobody is maintaining and improving the thing that’s there.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Via Marcin Wichary<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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I think this is spot on, and said really well. Are you honest with yourself about resourcing and focus for right after the launch <\/em>and then later on<\/em>? Have you really thought about worst case and best case scenarios vis-à-vis bug reports, latency, user feedback, and craft\/​quality however you define it? Have you actually started to make room for those outcomes ahead of time?<\/p>\n

For me, an ongoing tension with Apple is Finder, so central to my (and I imagine many people’s?) use of a Mac, but rewritten at some point eons ago in a new framework that caused all sorts of problems, and then pretty much abandoned like a proverbial American city’s downtown.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Revealing files in the Finder and Mail’s table view sort indicators have been broken for me since Big Sur. Disk Utility still doesn’t work as well as before its El Capitan rewrite. But these aren’t even big new features.<\/p>\n\n

Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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This is what happens when you release major OS updates every year: you have to keep launching new features.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n