Apple Delays Work on Next Year's iPhone, Mac Software To Fix Bugs (bloomberg.com) 74
In a rare move, Apple hit pause on development of next year's software updates for the iPhone, iPad, Mac and other devices so that it could root out glitches in the code. From a report: The delay, announced internally to employees last week, was meant to help maintain quality control after a proliferation of bugs in early versions, according to people with knowledge of the decision. Rather than adding new features, company engineers were tasked with fixing the flaws and improving the performance of the software, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private.
Apple's software -- famous for its clean interfaces, easy-to-use controls and focus on privacy -- is one of its biggest selling points. That makes quality control imperative. But the company has to balance a desire to add new features with making sure its operating systems run as smoothly as possible. [...] When looking at new operating systems due for release next year, the software engineering management team found too many "escapes" -- an industry term for bugs missed during internal testing. So the division took the unusual step of halting all new feature development for one week to work on fixing the bugs. With thousands of different Apple employees working on a range of operating systems and devices -- that need to work together seamlessly -- it's easy for glitches to crop up.
Apple's software -- famous for its clean interfaces, easy-to-use controls and focus on privacy -- is one of its biggest selling points. That makes quality control imperative. But the company has to balance a desire to add new features with making sure its operating systems run as smoothly as possible. [...] When looking at new operating systems due for release next year, the software engineering management team found too many "escapes" -- an industry term for bugs missed during internal testing. So the division took the unusual step of halting all new feature development for one week to work on fixing the bugs. With thousands of different Apple employees working on a range of operating systems and devices -- that need to work together seamlessly -- it's easy for glitches to crop up.
Microsoft, are you paying attention? (Score:1)
"So the division took the unusual step of halting all new feature development for one week to work on fixing the bugs."
Of course for Microsoft that should be one YEAR.
iTunes anyone? (Score:1)
"Apple's software -- famous for its clean interfaces, easy-to-use controls and focus on privacy -- is one of its biggest selling points."
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It's not just an mp3. You cannot directly transfer ANY file to an iPhone. It is physically impossible to do a drag-and-drop. I checked.
You either have to use a third-party piece of software, or jump through hoops via iTunes to copy a file to an iPhone.
Completely and utterly ridiculous.
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It's not just an mp3. You cannot directly transfer ANY file to an iPhone. It is physically impossible to do a drag-and-drop. I checked.
You either have to use a third-party piece of software, or jump through hoops via iTunes to copy a file to an iPhone.
Completely and utterly ridiculous.
AFAIK, You cannot dragondrop; but you can transfer files to/from an iphone's "Files" App by a several Methods:
1. AirDrop. Intrinsically available in iOS/iPadOS, macOS and (maybe) watchOS. Can be used with nearby Apple Devices.
2. Using iCloud. Intrinsic to Apple. Web interface for others. Similar to many "Dropbox-like" Services. Good for Remote Transfers.
3. To a Shared Volume over WiFi.
4. Over a USB Cable.
Details Here:
https://support.apple.com/guid... [apple.com]
This has a better explanation of connecting to network sha
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The Files app can also link up with other cloud storage providers, such as DropBox, OneDrive, Google Drive, even OwnCloud, among others.
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The Files app can also link up with other cloud storage providers, such as DropBox, OneDrive, Google Drive, even OwnCloud, among others.
I thought I covered that one, too; but thanks!
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The sad cut here for us olds is that soundjam, which Apple acquired, was solid and fun.
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Even early iTunes was ... 1, 2, 3, maybe even up to 4. Totally usable, fun, easy to work with.
Then the wheels came off.
Much like what is happening with macOS these days.
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Anybody have suggestions on alternatives that don't require subscriptions? I don't need high fidelity, just want simplicity from my phone. Streaming is not great option as I have a really old collection, and I want to hear the albums in original song order. Too much to ask for these days?
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Yes. Too much to ask for these days?
If it involves Apple, the answer is 'yes', because they demand to dictate how you can use the hw/sw you paid for and 'own'.
Not the first time for Apple to do this. (Score:5, Interesting)
They've done this in the past where they decided there is just too much tech debt in their existing codebases, so they took an upgrade cycle to clean it up and make the best version of their current version they could. It was called Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" and it was probably the best release of Mac OS X to date, quality-wise.
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They've done this in the past where they decided there is just too much tech debt in their existing codebases, so they took an upgrade cycle to clean it up and make the best version of their current version they could. It was called Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" and it was probably the best release of Mac OS X to date, quality-wise.
"The upgrade with NO new features!"
I keep one of my MacBooks at that level because it's so good.
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They've done this in the past where they decided there is just too much tech debt in their existing codebases, so they took an upgrade cycle to clean it up and make the best version of their current version they could. It was called Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" and it was probably the best release of Mac OS X to date, quality-wise.
"The upgrade with NO new features!"
I keep one of my MacBooks at that level because it's so good.
They did that with iOS 12 or 13, too, IIRC. Helped performance on on older hardware considerably.
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When software optimization comes up I always like to give a shoutout to Aldus who put out PageMaker (which was bought by Adobe). A very early version (maybe 3.0?) came on five 1.4 meg disks. Which was a LOT back then. Everyone was guessing how many disks the next version would come on. Except Aldus had different plans. Not only did they include several new most-wanted features but also rewrote the program from ground up. The final disk count ended up being three.
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I recall Mountain Lion being similarly refined over its predecessor. I had relatively few complaints during that cycle.
Escape? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is "escape" an industry term? I'm been programming for nearly 40 years, and I've never heard that word used in any context.
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I've heard of it, but I've been programming for MORE than 40 years, and it was in that 3-4 year difference gap between you and me that that one guy, one time, used that term - 40 years ago.
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ditto. Hey, we don't have enough vocab; the doctors and lawyers are ahead so lets add some more until we become #1 in jargon!
Re: Escape? (Score:1)
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it's *so* standard a term that it actually has a reserved spot on the keyboard! :)
hawk
Re: Escape? (Score:2)
Escape sequences are a thing, so if you literally never heard that word in "any" context then you're not a programmer. Dial back the hyperbole.
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Escape sequences are a thing...
For some reason, that term escaped my memory until you reminded me of it.
What's that saying again? (Score:1)
Your post is the one of the best examples.
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Apple fanbois' troll responses
Personally I call them fantrolls. And yeah can't wait to see their responses - should be entertaining.
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Apple fanbois' troll responses
Personally I call them fantrolls. And yeah can't wait to see their responses - should be entertaining.
Ok, I'll bite.
I glad that Apple actually listens to User feedback (Apple Forums have been fairly loudly whining about Software QA for 2 or 3 years now), and cares enough about Quality to step back and (finally!) go on a serious bug hunt.
And yes, I do wish the entire industry would stop being in constant Sprint Mode!
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Apple fanbois' troll responses in 3... 2... 1...
Apple haters sure seem to spend a lot of time inventing debates in the hope somebody will take the bait and argue with them.
LOL! (Score:2)
Knew the clueless Apple fanbois would come'a knocking the truth down to -1.
"inventing debates" - what a laugh :ROFL emoji: Gotta love the fanbois arguing with Apple platform developers with 15+ years of experience dealing with the mountainous amount of bugs in Apple's software.
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Knew the clueless Apple fanbois would come'a knocking the truth down to -1.
Probably has more to do with you being a petulant jerk than with truth.
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That implies there's actual QA/testing at Apple, of which there obviously is none, as seen by the huge number of bugs in their software;
What was the most recent one? Oh yeah, the MAC randomization feature designed to prevent people from tracking you over wifi. Turns out, rather than randomize the MAC address used, it always used the built-in one. Somehow not only did no one at Apple even notice, no security researcher bothered checking until recently.
I still remember "goto fail," where it turns out that an errant copy-paste had turned an "if (update_hash(data)) goto fail;" statement into "if (update_hash(data)) goto fail; goto fail;" and no
Pretty solid proof right there (Score:2)
I still remember "goto fail," where it turns out that an errant copy-paste had turned an "if (update_hash(data)) goto fail;" statement into "if (update_hash(data)) goto fail; goto fail;" and no one at Apple noticed that their certificate checking code no longer checked if the hash matched, meaning literally any certificate worked. Somehow, not only did they not do any sort of QA testing, they apparently disabled all compiler warnings as well!
Standard industry software development practices for any team over 1 person in any self-respecting development organization would include:
- code review by at least 1 other developer of same or above seniority, far more for any security-related changes (as this one was)
- changes to include detailed description of the changes, and what needs testing
- actual testing of the changes and overall functionality by the reviewer(s) based on given descriptions
- further manual validation by QA personnel (team size
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I still remember "goto fail," where it turns out that an errant copy-paste had turned an "if (update_hash(data)) goto fail;" statement into "if (update_hash(data)) goto fail; goto fail;" and no one at Apple noticed that their certificate checking code no longer checked if the hash matched, meaning literally any certificate worked. Somehow, not only did they not do any sort of QA testing, they apparently disabled all compiler warnings as well!
Standard industry software development practices for any team over 1 person in any self-respecting development organization would include: [...]
Given the description of the introduced bug [synopsys.com], I'd add proper practice of linting the code to that list as well, especially for larger organization, where the code formatting is standardized for consistency (makes it easier for reviewers too).
In this particular case, either the indenting, and/or enforced use of braces would've made it easier to spot (that is, if it was ever reviewed by anyone else, which I highly doubt as well).
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And I doubt Apple "learned its lesson".
They hadn't by then [slashdot.org] ('goto fail' occurred in 2014), and clearly still haven't yet.
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Turns out, rather than randomize the MAC address used, it always used the built-in one
It did use the randomized one. It just leaked the real one all over the place within its broadcast traffic headers.
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Turns out, rather than randomize the MAC address used, it always used the built-in one
It did use the randomized one. It just leaked the real one all over the place within its broadcast traffic headers.
One place. UDP Port 5353, the mdns broadcast packets used the hardware MAC. Everything else used the per-network-random MAC just fine.
Now fixed.
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Well it only takes one place because it sprays that on every network it connects to and it links the two MACs together.
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Well it only takes one place because it sprays that on every network it connects to and it links the two MACs together.
Fixed now.
Your point being?
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Besides mindnumbingly repeating the same tired thing over and over again like a MAGAtard, what's *your* point??
That they had a bug, acknowledged the bug, and fixed the bug in several versions of the affected OSes.
What else do you want?
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That it was an actual privacy issue before it was fixed, but that it did actually "work" in that the primary MAC address was changed. Did you even read the topic of conversation before jumping in?
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That it was an actual privacy issue before it was fixed, but that it did actually "work" in that the primary MAC address was changed. Did you even read the topic of conversation before jumping in?
I know. I clarified that only mdns was at fault. Bad enough, I know; and maybe one of the "last straws" that triggered the Code Review.
So yes, I understood.
Just glad to see that one fixed, and a Bug Hunt is sorely needed. Almost all Apple Users would wholeheartedly agree!
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That implies there's actual QA/testing at Apple, of which there obviously is none, as seen by the huge number of bugs in their software;
What was the most recent one? Oh yeah, the MAC randomization feature designed to prevent people from tracking you over wifi. [...]
I still remember "goto fail," [...]
I remember the one where an iTunes installer ended up wiping people's drives [cnet.com] if its volume name had any spaces.
That was back in 2009. Nothing's changed, apparently.
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That implies there's actual QA/testing at Apple, of which there obviously is none, as seen by the huge number of bugs in their software;
What was the most recent one? Oh yeah, the MAC randomization feature designed to prevent people from tracking you over wifi. [...]
I still remember "goto fail," [...]
So do we want to start talking about Windows and Linux bugs, too?
Only fair, right?
I remember the one where an iTunes installer ended up wiping people's drives [cnet.com] if its volume name had any spaces.
That was back in 2009. Nothing's changed, apparently.
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What I hate the most is the foaming-at-the-mouth Apple fanboys that are in such a rush to defend Apple as its free PR department that they can't even get their quoting markdown right.
Sorry. Posting from my phone.
Perhaps if Slashdot would have a somewhat less user-surly Commenting System, those little mistakes could be corrected.
I sincerely hope you never make a mistake.
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That implies there's actual QA/testing at Apple, of which there obviously is none, as seen by the huge number of bugs in their software;
What was the most recent one? Oh yeah, the MAC randomization feature designed to prevent people from tracking you over wifi. Turns out, rather than randomize the MAC address used, it always used the built-in one. Somehow not only did no one at Apple even notice, no security researcher bothered checking until recently.
I still remember "goto fail," where it turns out that an errant copy-paste had turned an "if (update_hash(data)) goto fail;" statement into "if (update_hash(data)) goto fail; goto fail;" and no one at Apple noticed that their certificate checking code no longer checked if the hash matched, meaning literally any certificate worked. Somehow, not only did they not do any sort of QA testing, they apparently disabled all compiler warnings as well!
Wrong.
iOS per-network randomized the MAC for all traffic just fine; but the mdns broadcast packets on standard UDP Port 5353 were accidentally using the "real" MAC. This has since been fixed.
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Technically they are both wrong. ALL packets used the randomized MAC as the source address. It's the mdns packets that had the real MAC in another header. Still leaked the real MAC paired with the fake one on every network it connects to, though.
Failed Experiment (Score:3)
I was told at a WWDC that Jobs disbanded the Advanced Technologies Group (Apple Skunkworks) and QA and told each team to ddo their own R&D and QA.
And then gave them impossible schedules for existing work not including R&D and QA.
I presume I wasn't lied to but if it were true we'd see basically no new products and lots of bugs. So Apple Watch, I guess? Occulus Fruit? I dunno.
At one point my job, at a medical center, was to be on a weekly call with an Apple engineer to help them debug a new IP stack which was released with de minimus field testing. It was so bad at one point that ARP & DHCP was a crapshoot. And I was a year out of college with a protcol analyzer and a textbook. Oh, well, I got a MacNC out of it before they decided to call it an iMac. Diskless netboot actually worked and storage was on a linux box running netatalk.
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Jobs disbanded the Advanced Technologies Group (Apple Skunkworks)
Why fund R&D when you can just buy the successful startups and leave the other failures for investors to eat the cost.
Yeah (Score:2)
Seeing as almost everything else they have released in the last two years have had massive bugs and other failures, it's surprising they care enough.
Gross Error: Apple actually has horribly difficult (Score:1)
Dragging your disk to the trash to eject it is the great summary of Apple Interfaces.
Their magic mouse, that magically cannot be used and charged at the same time...
Having settings change when clicked with no confirmation is super crazy stupid, and microsoft copied in Windows 8.
Not being able to tell what windows are open.
Having applications go full screen and not be able to control them is the latest thing a client of mine had to deal with.
They have keys that don't help with names... apple is ok, but the 4
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Their magic mouse, that magically cannot be used and charged at the same time...
... their "on-device intelligence" that apparently can only tell you it needs charging once it's down to 1%. At the beginning of the work day (that is: when you actually need to use it most).
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I don't love their mice at all, but that doesn't sound too bad. While you could just enable the Bluetooth icon in the bar at the top and check the battery level any time
(and I believe the icon changes if a battery is low), you can also probably make it long enough to put it on to charge when you walk away from your desk for a few minutes, again at lunch, and at the end of the day.
The "on-device intelligence" reports the battery level continuously like most Bluetooth mice and keyboards. The OS just isn't i
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Their magic mouse, that magically cannot be used and charged at the same time...
It's all about image. You can't have an Apple user be seen using a wired mouse. Especially if it has an Apple logo on it. Too old-fashioned. So you just can't have a mouse if it needs charged.
Stop these rush releases. (Score:2)
Apple, MS, Google, etc. need to stop these quick releases. Take the dang time to do develop, test, etc. Stop doing these specific dates like yearly major releases.
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One of my biggest selling points for Debian.
while they'r at it (Score:1)