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Comment by planetjones | Hacker News Reader

The lack of attention to detail by Apple recently e.g. code reviews, in house testing is clearly too low. I have seen too many software failures recently from this company. Like photos freezing on my new iMac (before High Sierra), numerous issues with iOS (I remember the podcasts app wasting all my cellular allowance because it ignored WiFi only) and other nuances, inconsistencies and defects.

Only in iOS 11 have they added tags to the files app - the previous iCloud Drive app had a button for tags but it was seemingly not implemented.

Finding issues in apple products is really like going hunting in a zoo at the moment.

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I have a Dell Precision laptop running Linux at home and a MacBook Pro from work.

On a weekly basis, the Mac won't wake from sleep and requires a hard reboot. The Time Machine backups get corrupted at least every other month and require a full backup from scratch. Sometimes the audio just quits working when I wake from sleep. The App Store is some horribly wrapped, unresponsive web app. Disk Utility is useless. Etc, etc. It's a horrible mess of an experience.

The Dell running Linux is far more stable. I can get literal months of uptime out of the Dell using it on a daily basis w/ 100% hardware functionality. No stereotypical Linux desktop pains. And this is coming from someone who was an Apple fanboy for 10+ years. Apple's QA just went to shit and I was sick of dealing with their bugs.

Edit: For those telling me it's a hardware problem: it's possible, but I've had similar experiences w/ the wake-from-sleep issues on two different copies of the 2016 15" MBP, and the Time Machine corruption on a MBP and an Air. So if it is a hardware problem, then their hardware QC is as bad as their software.

After my previous MacBooks became buggier and less responsive after updating, I decided to abstain from updating altogether. I'm still on El Capitan, and while there are some bugs and rather baffling programs (z.B. the updated Disk Utility), they are far and few between compared to the High Sierra experience on my other computers. Perhaps you could consider downgrading?

That's not really a sustainable solution, though. At some point, 3rd party developers quit supporting old systems and Apple quits issuing security patches.

If I had my way, time would've froze with 10.6.8.

It depends on what you do. I have a friend still happily running SL. He's curious about the new version of Lightroom, but still using the old version just fine.

I hope it's not connected to the internet.

It sounds like you have a hardware problem with your Mac. Time Machine and wake from sleep could be signs of bad RAM...maybe the audio problem, too. Or maybe the extra stuff your work installs? In my experience (for all platforms) that software is low-level and of dubious quality.

OTOH, as long as your hardware is decently supported, I haven't really had fundamental complaints about desktop Linux in the 10+ years I've used it full time. It sounds like for certain laptops there has been good support for a couple years.

Typically, I'll get about 30-100 days of uptime on my mac laptops (usually a software update or installing a kernel extension). On my Linux desktop or server it'll be closer 100-300 days (again, usually kernel patches). Working with OpenGL heavy software, once or more a year there will be a bad combination of Nvidia drivers and kernel that could cause your desktop to crash during certain operations.

The audio issue only happened to me on one copy, but the wake from sleep and TM issues have happened on multiple MacBook Pros, both with & without the work bloatware. I'm inclined to blame those on bugs in macOS.

Are you using it in clamshell mode? Where you keep the lid closed and use an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse (you mentioned mbp and macbook air in your post). If so, I have heard about multiple problems like sleep/wake and cooling issues across multiple models and multiple OS releases. That is a specific use case I've heard avid mac users complain about over the years.

I did encounter corrupted Time Machine backups when I set up my own network Time Machine Server in Linux (using netatalk). When my laptop would go to sleep in the middle of a backup over wifi the whole backup would get corrupted. I haven't had that problem since I switched to using Synology as a network Time Machine server (I never had it happen when using a USB Time Machine backup, either). I've never used a Time Capsule.

> could be signs of bad RAM

Well, they can just open it up and cha-... I hope it's an older model.

Sadly, comparable PC laptops are following the same trend. (this could be like the headphone jack, where Apple leads the way and others follow even if consumers aren't happy). The other week I was looking at alternatives to a 13" MacbookPro that were known to run Linux well. My shortlist was a Dell XPS 13 and a Razer Blade Stealth--both have soldered on RAM (I was also looking at Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Yoga and Dell Precision 7xxx, but I never got far enough to see if they had replaceable memory).

I ran a model of MacBook that didn't wake from sleep at all after upgrading to Sierra.

The solution was to get another computer.

I don’t get why engineers let a broken setup hinder them for long periods of time and don’t do a simple google search and spend five minutes fixing their machine. None of your problems you listed are things “broken” and Apple is ignoring, shit happens and sometimes you need to fix it. If you can’t be bothered, take it to the Apple store or give it to your work IT person.

I used desktop Linux for 10 years, and finally I switched to Windows in 2015 because I was tired of "a simple google search and spend five minutes fixing their machine".

At a certain point, you want things to just work out of the box. You want to outsource the mental effort and time required to "just search and fix".

Yes, that’s a great argument for Linux, but much less so for macOS. Apple and Microsoft are roughly comparable these days (and that’s not a compliment to either), but after many years of “next year is the year of the Linux desktop”, Linux is still a pain to install on most consumer hardware in comparison to either macOS or Windows.

Nope, Linux is much easier to install on most consumer hardware compared to macOS. The latter is only easier on the minority of models made by single vendor.

> The latter is only easier on the minority of models made by single vendor.

And it's only "legal" on the minority of models made by a single vendor. That doesn't make it any less relevant that for the intended environment for it to be installed on, it's far easier.

So if only Linus would threaten you with a lawsuit for installing it in a model not designed explicitly for it, then Linux would be a much better system than it is today, right?

If there was a single high end mainstream laptop on the market which had comparable full hardware support of everything on the machine as macOS does to a MBP, then you could say something, but alas there isn’t and likely never will be.

Please, enlighten me as to how I can keep a MBP from freezing when I open the lid. Or from corrupting my Time Machine backups. Or how I can fix the fact that their applications like Disk Utility and the App Store suck.

:eyeroll:

As the two issues (outside your subjective opinions on apps) you mentioned don’t happen to anyone I know, the answer is fixing whatever you broke obviously... :eyeroll:

Opposite experience here.

2015 Dell Precision M6800 issues (all non-linux-related have been replicated by >=1 coworker):

    Spurious thermal throttle activation occasionally reduces performance to molassas
    Bluescreen in network drivers ~ once a week
    Unless you disable integrated/discrete graphics switching, it fails to recognize external displays
    HDD makes strange grinding noise every month or so, but hasn't failed yet.
    Shit control loop on fans sometimes causes them to repeatedly pulse on and off
    Shit battery / power management (about ~1.5hr tops after incentivized settings optimization)
    Shit trackpad
    Takes ~1 minute to recognize new USB HID devices (might be AV's fault)
    (Linux-only): latest stable ubuntu toggles backlight on/off at 30hz
    (Linux-only): ancient supported ubuntu doesn't support modern chrome or firefox (!)
    (Linux-only): able to wake from sleep exactly once
    (Linux-only): massive pain in the ass to install drivers on supported ubuntu (directions for the packager app were out of date and incorrect to a degree that was difficult to work around)

2013 MBP:

    Dead key, replaced keyboard (cost: $10 + two hours)
    Spill caused unreliable trackpad, replaced. (cost: $30 + two hours)

I have the newer M5510 and haven't run into any of those issues. HiDPI screen works fine with Gnome scaling, touch screen works, no noises possible from the SSD, fans scale up & down appropriately, battery isn't as good as the Mac but I haven't optimized anything on Linux and it's still several hours, backlight works fine, etc. That's all on the latest release of Fedora (26 IIRC).

The land of PC hardware and Linux support is highly model/version dependent.

That's good to know -- as you point out, it's a highly variable function of models/versions, so much so that anecdotal data can actually be useful :)

How did you get the MBP trackpad replaced for $30 and in 2h? I have the one in my MacBook Air in a similar state and Apple quotes 150+ EUR and leaving it for one week at their tech support...

US Apple Stores have on-site repair.

I bought a replacement on ebay and swapped it out. Most of the two hours was spent un-sticking the battery from the case.

Macs have high enough volume per model that parts and tutorial videos are plentiful and cheap :D

So bad hardware and bad Linux support at your work? Doesn't seem like an opposite experience at all.

> On a weekly basis, the Mac won't wake from sleep and requires a hard reboot. The Time Machine backups get corrupted at least every other month and require a full backup from scratch. Sometimes the audio just quits working when I wake from sleep.

No defense to Apples SW problems, but it sounds like you may have a hardware problem. You should take your computer into Apple and see if you can get it fixed or replaced.

My mid-2011 MacBook Air with 4 GB memory has been running really well. Occasionally Safari (the Metal version in High Sierra) gets slow, but it's still faster than Chrome. I've been using it for general casual computing and machine learning development with Jupyter Notebooks and haven't run into anything that would make me want to switch. I'll probably upgrade to a 2018 MacBook Pro with 8 GB memory when those come out.

Ditto. My 2011 Air is still one of the best machines I've ever bought, and it still gets daily use.

Same. This machine still gets daily use in my house.

The next laptop will not be a Mac though. Both the hardware and especially the software has gotten progressively worse to to point where it's not worth it anymore.

> I've been using it for general casual computing and machine learning development with Jupyter Notebooks

Must be working with very small datasets given so little RAM.

It chugged on a 2 GB csv for a personal project, but it was tolerable. I wouldn't use this machine for work.

Every time I had these issues with corrupt Time Machine backups the destination drive had bad blocks. If you have the right drive/interface combination you can use an application called SMART Utility by Volitans to check on that. Time Capsule drives need to be put in compatible enclosures.

I would be suspicious of any drive that has even one bad block.

If only there were a modern filesystem that could actually catch these sorts of failures ...

But, hey, here's APFS!

I get it regularly with my network backups to my freeBSD server running netatalk

Ditto. Our cheap Linux and Windows machine computers are far more stable than our MacBook, which has become a paperweight used to run only one application

So true. My experience was that upgrading Apple OSes was a safe and reliable experience. I'd almost always upgrade on launch day or the day after. As of the last 2-3 releases that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Their quality assurance has decreased so much that, for productivity sake, I just can't risk it.

After the debacle that was the Sierra upgrade (we had all of our users get locked out of their machines after the upgrade reboot and countless issues with Wifi), I'm hesitant to think about High Sierra or iOS 11.

Apple's reputation for high prices was always offset by high quality. If they keep skimping on the quality side, I'd imagine their leverage on the pricing side is going to get hurt (eventually).

Oddly Sierra has been the easiest MacOS upgrade I've ever had. Barely noticed it other than having to rerun xcode-select --install; even some of the obscurer libraries I'd installed are still working. (I haven't moved to High Sierra yet.)

After upgrading to High Sierra and running into issues ranging from freeze ups to terrible bugs in the apps I use for work, I will never upgrade immediately after a launch again.

When I see that a major software release is published for general use I used to assume that it was solid and that the general public was not being used as guinea pigs.

High Sierra was a simple upgrade. Nothing seems to be broken for me. Usually some command utlis would be broken.

I totally concur with that last comment. I had to reset my iPhone 7 plus and watch series 3, twice over the weekend to get the Activity app to sync properly. Which is a shame considering Apple's reputation for building "air-tight" software and products and not rushing features to market because they want to get it "right".

> Apple's reputation for building "air-tight" software

Really that was 5+ years ago. Apple is a life style company first these days and a technology company second you can see this by their priorities.

Wanted to voice my complaint that you're being downvoted. This is absolutely true, I completely agree.

It's because of the iPhone-ization of all of its products. Making hardware changes and releasing software updates yearly is going to take a very long time to stabilize as a practice.

Event with all of their employees, they can't truly make a unique premium product every year.

If you look at the release schedule of macOS, it hasn't been that much different. There is a major update every year to every 1.5 years and patch updates every 2 months. A difference in 6 months in a release schedule doesn't matter that much if you manage how much goes in a shorter release cycle.

http://www.robservatory.com/?p=46

Wasn’t there a major issue with the designer in the newest version of Xcode? I haven’t upgraded yet but saw this mentioned on Twitter.

I recently switched to a Macbook Pro and feel like someone sold me a paper weight. But hey, it sure has a pretty case.

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