Everything just doesn't work and nobody cares
dear-apple.com
I am seriously tired. Nothing "just works", I have to always reboot, restart, replug, update, force-quit and make sure it didn't hang up while I wasn't looking.
dear-apple.com
When I do encounter a problem, the answer is almost always available after 5 minutes on Google.
Following the herd leads to an easy life. Go figure.
Personally, the difference I see since I switched to Debian (six years ago) was that I had less problems than on Windows, and more importantly, that I could actually fix those problems instead of having to get used to them.
My Windows 7 desktop, which I barely use compared to my Debian laptop & VPS, still wastes much more of my time with maintenance and random bugs.
I once had to start Windows in Rescue Mode and do some weird stuff there just to get Steam back running. It failed to start suddenly and seemingly without cause. For a while (some years ago) I couldn't boot Windows at all until I unplugged a dvd-drive (linux was running fine) - I still use that dvd-drive, windows starts with it again. I bought GTA 4 and couldn't play it because Games for Windows Live wasn't working (still doesn't, but i found the hidden offline-mode). Sometimes I can't delete files in Windows with no cause whatsoever.
At the same time, I'm using a rock-stable Ubuntu LTS with a custom "desktop environment" on the same hardware and never had any real issues i still remember. Oh, thinking a bit longer about it, there were some issues when upgrading to this lts: plymouth didn't stop itself (i had to end it via the rc.local) and pulseaudio didnt work (switched to alsa). That's about it.
Following the herd doesn't lead to an easy life, the herd willingly runs down a cliff.
Guess it is not so bad anymore, but if you liked Ubuntu in production servers, going the route of a small window manager could be more your style (don't know if I'm stating stuff obvious to you, just in case).
The most stable computers I've ever owned have been those that I've built myself, while 90% of my repair work comes from Dell and HP computers that barely last 2 years.
I don't think I'll ever buy another Mac desktop, because I'm so thrilled with the ability to "look under the hood."
I'm using an old iMac as a media server, but every time I connect remotely using Team Viewer, it complains that I don't have a mouse attached.
My new iPod touch still won't sync remotely.
We were Apple fans "back in the day" (1990s) because it all "just works." The funny thing is my new Desktop/Gaming machine (running Windows 8) is more trouble-free than anything else I own.
Apple should work harder on household integration. Otherwise they'll lose out to Almond, Roku, Kindle, and all the other boxes that "just work together."
Instead, they are rewriting existing functionality, often in a way that breaks because it fails to take into account all accumulated knowledge. Joel Spolsky wrote about that here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html. Restarting from scratch is the worst idea you can have.
Here are things that were broken in OSX 10.7 or 10.8: Dual monitor support, resolution change, keyboard input, auto-correction, Save As, Suspend/Resume, Backups/Time Machine, Preview, Window manager (backing store), OpenGL (stereoscopy = kernel panic, very annoying for http://www.taodyne.com), Mail, Safari, RSS feeds, Windows networking. That's just off the top of my head, sure there are many others.
But things are only marginally better in Linux or Windows land. On Linux, the user interface in Ubuntu is a mixed bag. At least, I get a sense of purpose and direction. And Windows 8 is like "What were they thinking" (although I met a few users who think it's a good ideas, so YMMV).
And what about C++11, which added the kitchen sink but forgot introspection/reflection? What about Facebook which still has not found a business model, but keeps rewriting privacy rules? What about washing machines that break after 5.0001 years?
BTW, stuff that is not the way it should be is the primary topic of my own blog, Grenouille Bouillie, https://grenouillebouillie.wordpress.com. Sorry for the shameless plug, but it's really a topic close to my heart.
Sometimes, out of nowhere, my TimeCapsule Backups take forever, although they are always around the same size.
With some Access Points (non Apple), my MBP takes forever to log into their Wifi after wake from sleep.
My MacMini Server fails to serve its Desktop via VNC when no display is attached, because they use GPU accel. to render the video and the GPU Drivers does not get loaded when no Display is attached. If got a freaking VGA-Display-Fake Dongle on my Server to solve this.
iTunes, don't get me started. The last 10 movies i added to iTunes have the Cover Art Tab greyed out so that i cannot add Cover Art to them. God knows why.
iCloud.. ICLOUD!
And so on. And i'm a guy who takes its time to dig into things. I want to get my stuff solved, but sometimes you just can't.
Something along those lines.
The problems mentioned here are simply not shared by most users.
Show of hands, how many Apple users here can't get Chrome to work reliably?
How many iTunes users have had the app crash on them? I've been a fan of their products (software too) for at least a decade now, and the only crash issues I've ever had on iTunes were on Windows. (Apple's ported software is invariably crap) And I've got a library approaching 50k songs.
I've never had a problem with Preview corrupting files.
I've never had mail from the past appear on an iPhone.
Either I am incredibly, incredibly lucky, or these problems are rare and don't affect that many people.
And I am not that lucky.
I've had iTunes running for weeks without gobbling all of my memory.
At some point he needs to face the facts that if he's the only person experiencing all these problems then the problem isn't the software, it's him.
If Chrome works for almost everybody else, and worked for you until moving, then the problem probably isn't that Chrome mysteriously broke, but that your new network connection is flaky.
In fact, almost all of the things you were ranting about could be explained by a bad network connection.
Only then you start noticing little things like how headers in those 'Group by' modes in Finder obscure the actual file names, that you can't sort files in the Open window, that every time you try to save the file with a new name it offers you to save to iCloud, etc..
But I agree with you on the rest - these are not issues the majority of users face, and I've seen none of them. [Edit: Few of them. I'm somewhat sympathetic to stance that Apple's software is lacking in some polish. And Preview after Lion has been /less than helpful/ for reviewing batches of images.]
I wouldn't say that iTunes is as bad as he says, since it's not crashing very often for me when using it normally. But every single time I plug in and iOS device it hangs, for up to 30 seconds, and at the end it either crashes completely or recovers. Note that this only started happening on iTunes 11.
I've had issues synching with the cable, iTunes telling me it just can't sync right now.
At one point, I plugged my phone in to sync it since it wouldn't over wifi. Except this time iTunes decided to re-synch ALL my music (over 4000 songs).
The App Store constantly harasses me to update the Twitter app, that I have deleted over a year ago.
I am on a late 2010 macbook air with 4GB of RAM, and I don't believe I have done something to my computer, like you say. It is working perfectly otherwise.
I used to blame manufacturers for this, but recently I have come to the conclusion that consumers are to blame. Nobody cares about longevity and build quality of products any more. Read some product reviews on Amazon and you'll notice most of them are written within days of purchasing the product. Go to Techcrunch and most of the product reviews there seem to be written before they used the damn thing.
tl,dr: If we incentivize designers and manufacturers to neglect quality over specs, we get the crap we get these days.
And it's really depressing to see just how many of these reviews say that the product stopped working within days of being purchased!
And you can multiply that by just about every eBook app out there too.
I would suggest you leave for greener pastures, but Job's genius was such that you're probably not even considering that: it would mean giving up all the content and apps you've bought.
edit: I was a bit confused by your reply, but I now see why: I wrote 'install Windows' when perhaps should have written 'use Windows, or 'buy a computer with anything but Windows'. My mistake!
Too true. I bought a Nexus 4 because I had this problem, and the alternative was paying £100+ for Apple to fix my button. Surely the sole button on a device should work for the lifetime of the device?
I don't have a problem with people complaining about products, but it's silly to try to generalize it to "everyone has this problem" based on personal experience. Apple sold tens of millions of units of the iPhone 4 in dozens of countries.
How do other browsers behave? Sounds like an ISP problem rather than anything on your end.
Their quality control has become a little lax (they could improve consistency and testing surely), but I still think this kind of sob story is overblown. They're still better than about 90% of manufacturers out there in terms of usability and quality overall, and I think sometimes we get a little spoiled and forget that.
For example, my D-Link Wi-Fi base station makes me cringe every time I have to go into its configuration menus. It's quite literally their top-of-the-line piece of hardware, but it looks like the configuration was designed by a teenager who just took an HTML class in 1998.
On top of that, it drops the connection constantly and sometimes needs to be restarted just because it stops working entirely. This was a replacement for an Apple AirPort Extreme that my roommate took with him, and I thought "Oh this will be good enough, it's half the price," and surely I've spent more in time and frustration dealing with it than that money was worth to me. I completely took it for granted that the AirPort just worked, for 3 years straight, without me even having to think about it.
Lesson be learned: Apple has us generally spoiled, so that we expect perfection. That's a tough spot to be in if anything goes wrong (and sometimes it does), but let's not forget how good we have it most of the time.
I had mine for 2 years (before I switched to iPhone 5), I didn't have any problems with it.
I had a nasty experience with a 2007 Macbook Pro 3 years ago. One morning the screen didn't come on. Fortunately I was in the US at that time. I went to the nearest Apple store and discussed with them. Turned out the issue with the screen was a known issue. They fixed it the same day. No charge because it was a known hardware-problem.
They are generally quite friendly when you talk with them.
When I share what I do with savvy folks who are having issues, I find that NONE of them do all of the things I consider essential, that can be done with little knowledge.
My easy-to-do essentials, In order of priority, from years of experience are:
• I restart Windows frequently, at least daily, and anytime things seem "off" (rarely). I of course also restart any application(s) that seem(s) to be working poorly. I rarely need to do either.
• I use an online backup service that archives changes (dropbox) so I can restore old versions of files in case I screw something up (about once every other month).
• If I have a problem that repeats, I restart Windows in safe mode, and then turn off, unplug the POWER cord, and then hold the power button in with the power cord UNPLUGGED (fixes some electrical static issues. Works on other appliances as well)
• I hide all services under Msconfig > services tab to see what is starting up that I might not need, and then uncheck some or even click "Disable all." You can generally turn anything off here without causing noticeable issues. Turn stuff back on and restart if concerns.
• If one browser gives me a problem I switch to another (I have four installed).
• I upgrade or reinstall Windows at least every 4-5 years or so.
• I auto-install software updates and use anti-virus software.
These basic practices give me many almost entirely headache-free years.
Of course, I'm also fairly savvy about not installing extras with software, and avoiding clicking suspicious links or giving information to suspect websites, but these practices rely much more on experience, and can't really be considered "easy-to-do" in the same way the others can.
Also, I used to use Apple products. I had so many problems, and couldn't figure out best practices to avoid them, that I stopped using Apple. Of course, YMMV, all I'm saying is that I'm not qualified to speak to stabilizing Apple setups, but I would expect that there are best practices that make a difference.
Same experience here, on both my home and work machines that currently run Windows 7. I've found Windows 7 to be remarkably stable, but I've also had good experiences with all the other NT-based operating systems I've used: NT 3.51 and 4.0, Windows 2000 and XP (never used Vista). But I usually don't restart Windows except to install Windows updates every couple of weeks. My work machine runs continuously (with lots of third-party services like Tomcat, Apache HTTP and VNC) and my home machine gets hibernated when I'm not using it.
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/EverythingsBrokenAndNobodysUps...
Makes for hilarious and introspective reading at the same time (if that can be done somehow!)
P.S: Here's the old HN thread on this one: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4531549
Every day I'm amazed that computers, some of the most complex non-biological processes on this planet, work at all, or as well as they do. I'm thankful that so many wonders are available to me, like the Internet and mobile phones.
iTunes Match is by far the biggest Apple crud that I've used. It simply does not work.
It lists some other issues, many of them are fixed by now and yet I simply can't list every thing that doesn't work.
I must ask, why are you still using the platform if it's so bad? Use something else, problem solved! No, it is that simple.