Hacker News Reader

Comment by reaperducer | Hacker News Reader

If it means less-buggy products, let him stumble all he wants. I'm tired of billion dollar companies charging me for betaware.

View on HN

This. If anything, Apple has been guilty of shipping buggy _software_ earlier than it should, _not_ the hardware. And while Tim might be an expert at operations for shipping hardware, software dev is a different ballgame.

The iphone 6+ was not rigid enough to withstand bending during normal use.

The iphone 6s battery could not last more than 18 months of daily use. After that it would not provide a stable voltage, causing the phone to randomly shutdown. The "fix" was sneaking in a permanent throttle at 20, 40, 60% of normal performance to hide the problem.

The new keyboards in the recent Macbook Pro redesign are hyper-fragile to the point that Apple's own service technicians have trouble fixing keys and end up having to replace the entire thing.

The Mac line has a history of graphics card failures due to excessive heat from poor thermal design.

The new keyboard isn't "hyper fragile" -- it's pretty great.

Oh goodness, tell me your typing secret! I've already broken several keys and it sounds like I'm trying to kill someone when I type

Lots of people are having issues with the screens of the new retina macbook pros - myself included. Basically smudging off the screen.

If you are talking about the 2014/2015 MB pro, go to an applestore to get it replaced for free while its in an extended warranty period.

"The new keyboards in the recent Macbook Pro redesign are hyper-fragile"

The new keyboards are not fragile in my experience. I'd say that they're probably more robust than the old keyboards in terms of standing up to normal use.

The issue is that they are very difficult to service. You can't easily remove the keys to clean out debris etc like you could with the old version, which could be a problem if they accumulate dust and grime underneath the keycaps.

the issue is the amount of dirt it takes to cause issues is extremely small. i've seen machines that were only used on a desk in a clean work space, and never even removed from that desk develop issues within a few months. meanwhile, i've seen previous gen models that were incredibly grimy and used outdoors with no issues. it's a problem that's ONLY effecting apple keyboards right now and that's pathetic

I know what you mean. I occasionally get crumbs and who-knows-what jamming up my keys, but so far it's always been quick to resolve by either mashing on the key for a bit or blowing some air into it.

I do worry about what they'll be like after a few years of use, however. What if stuff keeps accumulating under there, with no easy way to clean it out?

It's not like Apple was perfect before and these QA issues are somehow something new.

- The keyboards on the old MacBook Pro models (back when were silver) were also terrible. The keys kept falling off mine.

- MacBook graphics glitches also go way back (they even had a recall back in... 2010?). Several macOS releases had an issue where the screen was garbled when you got back from sleep.

- They've had tons of little USB issues, especially related to audio.

- My 2015 model has an issue where sometimes coming back from sleep, the internal keyboard no longer works. Everything is fine except no keyboard input.

(Etc.)

There were GPU issues with 2011 MBP machines. There was a class action lawsuit. I had to bake mine (well, the logic board) in the oven for 7 minutes. Plus i forgot to remove the speaker which melted so that cost another $15 to replace and was an overall unpleasant experience.

Has that been the result? I've heard fans complain about the quality of software decreasing. So they're shipping buggy products slowly?

I'm tired of companies in general putting out junk. The complete lack of embarrassment or care about putting out (and charging for) broken stuff frustrates me to no end. What I especially hate is instead of companies recognizing that and fixing it because they actually want to be better, they make excuses.

Is product quality not a priority anymore?

The market, afaict, no longer properly associates a game with its publisher/developers in the general case. In which case, companies don't have to try very hard to get out of problem release: few even know who they are.

I think such quality collapse is evident across many industries today. It might be related to wage stagnation. Can't afford to buy quality, and no incentive to produce it.

Please. They released an iOS update and the calculator wasn't working. How many expensive 10x PhDs do you need to release a working calculator app?

You don't need any 10x PhDs. You need some competent, well paid QA devs to go over the product and make sure the obvious stuff is working before you ship.

I've heard of a bunch of companies cutting QA staff in the past year or so. Upper management sees them as an obstacle to shipping and middle management sees them as the "source of all the bugs" and an entire office not "producing" anything so they're clearly not useful.

It doesn't help that there are a to of automated test zealots telling management that if you put your effort into automated tests you won't need manual testing. If you listen carefully the experts are really saying that is the ideal, not that it will ever be the reality.

I think the issue is that in software you can only get promoted by writing whizbang new features. Until the time companies figure out an incentive system that properly rewards responsible stewardship of an existing product we will be stuck in the current quagmire.

That won't happen until consumers figure out they care and put their money where their mouth is. When people buy the latest and then complain companies learn that the complaints are meaningless. When people start buying "brand-quality" devices only after they have been in the market for a while companies will learn that building a quality product pays because it has a longer life.

Airplanes and medical software is much more reliable (though both have major problems)

Apple has no need to increase their quality: their customers are loyal at the current levels. Their customers will say it is because the competition is worse overall (the truth of this statement is different debate).

Look at Microsoft for an example of how you can ignore quality for a long while before it catches up to you. (To their credit Microsoft did a stellar job of climbing out of that hole).

> I think such quality collapse is evident across many industries today.

Could it be related to MBA thinking? Seems like today's corporate leadership shamelessly focuses on nothing but short term financial numbers.

Meanwhile with Linux, you can have many people writing and testing bugfixes. Open source OSes don't have this problem where you have to wait for one company.

They don't have "this" problem -- but they certainly have problems. Kind of ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

Ok and? How does what you said contradict what I said? I didn't say there were no problems.

You missed the entire point of the article – the products are going to ship when the products are going to ship (when they are ready). Yet he's committing repeatedly unforced errors by promising dates he can't cash. Ask it this way: What's the benefit to promising a date early, especially one you can't hit and sully the launch of?

Ruins the entire point of being secret as shit too.

If you look to video games for lessons in this, then sadly most people want their shinything on time, even if it’s broken. A lot of people don’t, but we’re utterly drowned out by the wallets of people who buy day 1, every day. As with security and lots of other issues around tech, people need to be educated. We need better laws too, but that also requires an educated populace.

People seem to treat software and now hardware in ways they’d never dream of treating a meal, a car, or any purely tangible object.

Meals are bought often enough that you learn what you like over time. Cars are so expensive nobody can afford not to think about quality. Software (and many other things in life) is in that area where you don't buy often enough that you learn, and not so expensive that you need to do research.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com