If Yosemite, iOS 8 and other recent changes have shown anything, it is that that problems are not consistent across the user base -- some users are plagued by bugs, while others are somehow, inexplicably completely problem-free.
I myself have been hit hard by Yosemite bugs (graphics glitches, slowness, wifi not connecting at all, very slow wifi, Mac not coming out of sleep, AirPlay issues, Airdrop issues, Bluetooth suddenly disappearing etc., all this on a fast, fairly new MBP), but I have never experienced any iOS 8 bugs of note.
The corollary is that when someone complains, we need to take it seriously and not pretend everything is fine. Clearly many people are hit by problems, and the problems are very real.
Similar story here, and I don't even bother complaining anymore. The product is perfect. My fault, that Wifi doesn't finds no APs (fixed now in Yosemite), Bluetooth works occasionally (better in Yosemite, not up to par with competition), camera works once in Skype + next time after reboot (still happens) and audio stutters (still happens, but not as bad as in Mavericks). Oh, and don't get me started on the power brick cable quality [1]... Neither Apple or user forums care, the posts just get deleted. Whatever. My next laptop won't have a fruity logo. I need something that Just Works. Like Macbooks once were.
My next laptop won't have a fruity logo. I need something that Just Works.
I'm right there with you, but the trouble is, I'm not sure anything satisfies that criteria any more. :-(
Not so long ago, I was expecting to go the other way, with our next laptops here having that fruity logo precisely because we expected OS X to Just Work where Windows 8 was just nasty.
However, right now, neither of the major commercial platforms is at all appealing, and anything Linux-based still has the fundamental problem that there aren't enough professional quality applications available to meet our needs yet. Relying on SaaS to break the OS strangleholds is also a questionable business move that we are increasingly glad we haven't made as the stories of broken "upgrades", sharp price increases, and outright cancelled services pile up.
I'm holding out some hope that either MS will come back with the next version of Windows and promote some sort of very-long-term stability and support (which is something they have historically been good at, but it seems unlikely with their new choice of leadership) or the FOSS work will finally start to take over (but this probably requires changes in the law, specifically making clear that patents are not enforceable anywhere that matters on things used for interoperability like data formats, communications protocols, and algorithms necessary to work with them).
>If Yosemite, iOS 8 and other recent changes have shown anything, it is that that problems are not consistent across the user base -- some users are plagued by bugs, while others are somehow, inexplicably completely problem-free.
Not really inexplicably: different graphics and airport cards (in different Mac models), different wi-fi routers, some have installed BS haxies while others have not, some have updated their OS on top of the previous installation for 3-4 OSes, where others start from a clean slate, etc. Regarding Hangout, it's also different iOS device version, proximity to the phone, etc.
It's true that there are plenty of possible explanations, but whether those explanations should still be possible as we head into 2015 is a different question.
Wintel boxes through the 1990s and 2000s coped with a much more diverse range of hardware and related drivers than the Mac ecosystem has ever had, and while certainly there was the occasional glitch, the track record was dramatically better for a very long time than what we see today.
This idea that widespread failures are somehow acceptable and to be expected is a bizarre change in mindset that seems to have taken hold in the 2010s. It is not in any way inevitable. It is just a result of poor specification and standardisation, bad programming, and rushing junk to market for commercial reasons when it isn't up to the standards we used to expect, often with some vague promise that any flaws will be corrected by on-line updates later.
I'm increasingly of the view that the Internet has actually been the worst thing that has ever happened to the software industry. It should be a huge advantage, but in reality it is often used as an excuse to ship bad code early and to impose unwanted updates, rent-an-app pricing models, and other user-hostile strategies.
If anyone still made software that does an important job well and comes with meaningful long-term support, my businesses would be throwing so much money at them right now. Sadly, hardly anyone making core business software actually does. It appears that I am part of a small minority, and so many people are willing to accept and pay for substandard junk that this has become the dominant software business model of this decade.
The most frustrating thing is that, since apparently there aren't enough of us for our money to swing things back in a more quality-driven direction, it's not clear what any of us can do constructively to make things any better now. Maybe when things reach their logical conclusion and people are actually dying because some 13-year-old script kiddie accidentally crashed their car by remote control, the wider public will finally get the message and start demanding acceptable quality again.
>Wintel boxes through the 1990s and 2000s coped with a much more diverse range of hardware and related drivers than the Mac ecosystem has ever had, and while certainly there was the occasional glitch, the track record was dramatically better for a very long time than what we see today.
Perhaps rose colored glasses? I've used those Wintel systems and dealing with new and unexpected issues, with drivers, software, peripherals etc, was a day to day occurence.
It still is now, judging from Wintel friends I have, including my parents and siblings. It's just that in Wintel world there so many vendors and combinations of components, that no PC system has a multi-million units production run that a Mac has. Even for a company that pushes lots of units, like Dell, they offer 40+ different configurations at any point in time...
I honestly don't think it was ever as bad in those days as what we're seeing now, though, with the possible exception of high-end games where poor quality graphics drivers were notorious for causing crashes for a while (and still are, to some extent).
The only other big drop in compatibility that I can remember from recent years was when MS effectively moved to a different model for handling device drivers with Windows 7, which broke backward compatibility with some older devices whose vendors didn't always issue new Windows 7 drivers to replace the broken ones.
Still, considering that this was the first such change for many years and it's hardly reasonable to expect an OS developer to support the drivers for every hardware peripheral ever used on that OS, I don't think that's a bad track record.
I myself have been hit hard by Yosemite bugs (graphics glitches, slowness, wifi not connecting at all, very slow wifi, Mac not coming out of sleep, AirPlay issues, Airdrop issues, Bluetooth suddenly disappearing etc., all this on a fast, fairly new MBP), but I have never experienced any iOS 8 bugs of note.
The corollary is that when someone complains, we need to take it seriously and not pretend everything is fine. Clearly many people are hit by problems, and the problems are very real.