5 ms·

Huge performance difference - how did they not notice before?

sgillen 8y ago
The article made it seem like this only affected a small number of units? Their quality control probably doesn’t look at every single unit. Although it’s interesting that they didn’t find it at all, since reading HN and reddit gave me the impression it was very widespread.
- jmull 8y ago
  Generally you can’t get a sense for how widespread an issue is from social media, because it’s a perfect medium for confirmation bias. Confirming links and stories are shared/upvoted/forwarded while non-confirming ones are ignored or dismissed (or outright attacked for some reason).
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    This is basically the story of the modern world as viewed through the distorting lens that is media (and especially social media). I wish people would take the two sentences you wrote and then use them as a corrective lens that undoes this distorted perspective.
    - sgillen 8y ago
      Yeah it’s really hard to correct the perspective to the truth though if all you have is social media. Honestly I’ve been putting less and less trust in almost all my sources of knowledge recently.
      - tjr225 8y ago
        It's so, so strange that 10-20 years ago my parents told me not to trust what I read on the internet...and now that they're all using it they have seem forgotten their own advice.
        pokemongoaway 8y ago
        Yes it is exactly the same people that said "you can't trust it because it is 'from the internet'" who still now cling hardest to their trusted source of media.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  I would not trust any coverage of supposed issues with Apple hardware. There is a huge incentive for negative coverage. Remember Antenna-gate with the iPhone 4? They continued selling the iPhone 4, completely unmodified, for years after that whole debacle. That's how widespread the supposed issue was.
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    Apple settled a fairly large lawsuit related to Antennagate and was forced to send out a bumper case to affected users so they could hold the phone the "Jobs" way and get reception rather than the way you would normally hold...literally any other phone before, during, or since Antennagate, including newer iPhone models.
    - reaperducer 8y ago
      TBH, the "Jobs" way was the normal way that most people held a phone. It was the people who smothered the whole handset in some kind of crazy death grip that had attenuation problems. I got my bumper in the mail, but never needed or used it.
      - gamblor956 8y ago
        Most of the people I know who had iPhones had issues with the iphone 4 antenna, and only one or two of them are death-grippers. The problem was Apple's poor design, which Apple itself acknowledged by settling the case, offering free bumpers, and redesigning the antenna in future models.
    - toasterlovin 8y ago
      They settled for $15/phone or a free case (they had already offered a free case to customers of their own accord). They kept the iPhone 4 around for 2 years after it was no longer their marquee model. Surely if Antennagate was actually a problem for a significant portion of customers they would have stopped selling it as soon as possible (aka, upon release of the 4S). But they didn't.
- curiousgal 8y ago
  Not many manufacturers at their scale charge their prices so their QA procedure should be unorthodox as well.
- opencl 8y ago
  Apple always claims their issues affect a small number of units. I have seen zero people that tested the i9 MBP and did not see major throttling. The issue is clearly the result of a fundamental defect in how they were managing power and thermals.
  - breatheoften 8y ago
    The official explanation seems to be that the key management defect which lead to thermal management problems did not occur in the development machines used during the engineering process. This seems possible as presumably every machine used internally goes through a different provisioning process than those released into customer hands ... Thus the claimed cause of the problem seems to indicate that the flaw did not affect the internal benchmarks they ran. It would be _very_ concerning if the benchmarks they ran for engineering/marketing production were insufficient to catch this issue. I think the official explanation seems pretty likely. If the flaw had been present in the machines used for benchmarking than either their benchmarks didn’t catch the issue (unlikely) or the benchmarking numbers were fabricated which also seems unlikely as it would invite an infeasible amount of legal risk for an organization of apples size and mindshare ...
    - breatheoften 8y ago
      > It would be _very_ concerning if the benchmarks they ran for engineering/marketing production were insufficient to catch this issue. Clarification -- I meant to say -- 'It would be _very_ concerning if the benchmarks they ran for engineering/marketing production were insufficient to catch this issue on a system configuration in which the issue manifests.'
    - temac 8y ago
      Engineering, especially at this level, is not supposed to work like that. You certainly not do dev proto, then switch to prod both in one step and without even rechecking the tests you did on the proto. So their official explanation might be kind of right, but then it shows major deficiencies in their quality process. Which given the track record of quality issues they have had, is possible.

The article made it seem like this only affected a small number of units? Their quality control probably doesn’t look at every single unit. Although it’s interesting that they didn’t find it at all, since reading HN and reddit gave me the impression it was very widespread.

jmull 8y ago
Generally you can’t get a sense for how widespread an issue is from social media, because it’s a perfect medium for confirmation bias. Confirming links and stories are shared/upvoted/forwarded while non-confirming ones are ignored or dismissed (or outright attacked for some reason).
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  This is basically the story of the modern world as viewed through the distorting lens that is media (and especially social media). I wish people would take the two sentences you wrote and then use them as a corrective lens that undoes this distorted perspective.
  - sgillen 8y ago
    Yeah it’s really hard to correct the perspective to the truth though if all you have is social media. Honestly I’ve been putting less and less trust in almost all my sources of knowledge recently.
    - tjr225 8y ago
      It's so, so strange that 10-20 years ago my parents told me not to trust what I read on the internet...and now that they're all using it they have seem forgotten their own advice.
      - pokemongoaway 8y ago
        Yes it is exactly the same people that said "you can't trust it because it is 'from the internet'" who still now cling hardest to their trusted source of media.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
toasterlovin 8y ago
I would not trust any coverage of supposed issues with Apple hardware. There is a huge incentive for negative coverage. Remember Antenna-gate with the iPhone 4? They continued selling the iPhone 4, completely unmodified, for years after that whole debacle. That's how widespread the supposed issue was.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  Apple settled a fairly large lawsuit related to Antennagate and was forced to send out a bumper case to affected users so they could hold the phone the "Jobs" way and get reception rather than the way you would normally hold...literally any other phone before, during, or since Antennagate, including newer iPhone models.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    TBH, the "Jobs" way was the normal way that most people held a phone. It was the people who smothered the whole handset in some kind of crazy death grip that had attenuation problems. I got my bumper in the mail, but never needed or used it.
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      Most of the people I know who had iPhones had issues with the iphone 4 antenna, and only one or two of them are death-grippers. The problem was Apple's poor design, which Apple itself acknowledged by settling the case, offering free bumpers, and redesigning the antenna in future models.
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    They settled for $15/phone or a free case (they had already offered a free case to customers of their own accord). They kept the iPhone 4 around for 2 years after it was no longer their marquee model. Surely if Antennagate was actually a problem for a significant portion of customers they would have stopped selling it as soon as possible (aka, upon release of the 4S). But they didn't.
curiousgal 8y ago
Not many manufacturers at their scale charge their prices so their QA procedure should be unorthodox as well.
opencl 8y ago
Apple always claims their issues affect a small number of units. I have seen zero people that tested the i9 MBP and did not see major throttling. The issue is clearly the result of a fundamental defect in how they were managing power and thermals.
- breatheoften 8y ago
  The official explanation seems to be that the key management defect which lead to thermal management problems did not occur in the development machines used during the engineering process. This seems possible as presumably every machine used internally goes through a different provisioning process than those released into customer hands ... Thus the claimed cause of the problem seems to indicate that the flaw did not affect the internal benchmarks they ran. It would be _very_ concerning if the benchmarks they ran for engineering/marketing production were insufficient to catch this issue. I think the official explanation seems pretty likely. If the flaw had been present in the machines used for benchmarking than either their benchmarks didn’t catch the issue (unlikely) or the benchmarking numbers were fabricated which also seems unlikely as it would invite an infeasible amount of legal risk for an organization of apples size and mindshare ...
  - breatheoften 8y ago
    > It would be _very_ concerning if the benchmarks they ran for engineering/marketing production were insufficient to catch this issue. Clarification -- I meant to say -- 'It would be _very_ concerning if the benchmarks they ran for engineering/marketing production were insufficient to catch this issue on a system configuration in which the issue manifests.'
  - temac 8y ago
    Engineering, especially at this level, is not supposed to work like that. You certainly not do dev proto, then switch to prod both in one step and without even rechecking the tests you did on the proto. So their official explanation might be kind of right, but then it shows major deficiencies in their quality process. Which given the track record of quality issues they have had, is possible.