7 ms·

After following the changes as well as the issues in Catalina since it was released, I'm in no hurry to upgrade to it. I actually dread that Apple would, in a f

After following the changes as well as the issues in Catalina since it was released, I'm in no hurry to upgrade to it. I actually dread that Apple would, in a few short months, announce a new major release with even more changes and new features. So here's my short open letter to Apple. Dear Apple: Eat your false pride and do a reset on macOS – in WWDC 2020, don't add a new major macOS release, and don't have a new release name with funny stories of how your crack marketing department came up with it. Accept that you messed up, just like you messed up with the Mac Pro and tried to save face by saying that you "painted yourself into a thermal corner" (but didn't say why you went into radio silence for years). Then work on a stability focused release without adding major new features. We know you don't focus or spend as much on Mac/macOS as you do on iPhone and iOS. Introspect and realize that you bit a whole lot more than you can chew (even with hundreds of billions of dollars in cash) with macOS Catalina. Fix the design, fix the data loss issues, fix the Time Machine issues, fix the iTunes "replacements", fix the performance issues of APFS on magnetic hard drives, fix Catalyst, improve your QA/QC...the list of big ticket items is long enough to keep your tiny macOS team busy for another year or two. Follow a tick-tock cycle if you can't solve this with your current organization structure and people – one feature release a year, followed by (another) one whole year for stabilization and tiny incremental improvements. It takes a big mind to accept mistakes, accept them sooner than later, and then correct them. It's high time for you to grow up (being in the top two or three in market cap and all) and start doing this. You'll find people more accepting of deficiencies/issues and more willing to wait for fixes when you communicate like an adult and treat your customers as adults. [P.S.: If I have to lose some virtual points for this critical comment, so be it]

macinjosh 7y ago
I have been using Catalina on my dev machine since the public beta and have none of the issues you claim. Catalina is my favorite macOS yet. Just because it doesn’t work the way you want doesn’t mean Apple messed up.
- wool_gather 7y ago
  Conversely, the fact that it works for you doesn't preclude it being buggy, or problematic in other ways, for other people.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - macinjosh 7y ago
    duh.
- newscracker 7y ago
  Does losing data when people use a product like they always do also count within the scope of "doesn't work the way you want" and mean that Apple didn't mess up?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- kjaroppsu 7y ago
  Stop being a tool fanboy
- catalogia 7y ago
  I don't understand the motivation of "works for me" comments like this. Is your point that you believe other people are just hallucinating their problems, or that you believe they've 'used it wrong' and brought problems on themselves, or that if you personally haven't experienced a bug, then it's not an important bug?
  - Terretta 7y ago
    > Is your point that you believe other people are just hallucinating their problems...? It happens when the sightings are emotional. For instance: The Colorado Mystery Drones Weren’t Real The mysterious drone sightings that captured national attention were a classic case of mass hysteria. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/884xv3/the-colorado-mystery-drones-werent-real https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/884xv3/the-colorado-myste... Flip side of same phenomenon is the "snappier" meme.
  - zwily 7y ago
    I personally like seeing the “works for me” posts. It helps me gauge if the reported problems are universal, or just hitting a subset, which helps me decide when to roll the upgrade dice. BTW, I did finally upgrade to Catalina last week and it’s been going fine, with the exception of losing 50% of my Steam library to the 32-bit graveyard....
  - macinjosh 7y ago
    I believe the vast majority of people, even those on hacker news, have no idea how their computer works. Mosy of the time PEBKAC is the problem. When someone loses their data because they don't know how to use a computer it is easy to just blame the vendor.
- tacheiordache 7y ago
  Nobody was complaining of the changes here but the fact that Catalina is littered with bugs. It’s absolutely impossible that the bugs somehow function well on your Catalina installation. I suspect you’re either a fanboy and that you put your judgement after your pride or maybe you are a light user and didn’t run into these bugs
  - macinjosh 7y ago
    No you.
wool_gather 7y ago
> one feature release a year, followed by (another) one whole year for stabilization and tiny incremental improvements. In theory this is more or less what they have been doing (with both iOS and Mac), they just have been batching up the stabilization and slapping a whole new version number on it. But I don't disagree.
LeoTinnitus 7y ago
I said the same thing about Apples QA. I highly doubt they even do half the QA that the Ubuntu team does. It's like Apple is so cheap that they treat their users as their personal QA. They also don't like users who are a bit more advanced tech wise so they don't try to test what they may do. It's like they only want to sell to morons and suckers. Security wise I get that downloading something off of the internet is risky, but why the hell are you telling me that KNOWN gpl software downloaded from legitimate and verified sites could potentially be harmful? They treat their machines as a point of contact for the sake of making more money by channeling less savvy people through ways that require you to pay for something.
scarface74 7y ago
fix the performance issues of APFS on magnetic hard drives, Better yet, stop shipping iMacs with magnetic hard drives. This is 2020.
- catalogia 7y ago
  SSDs still can't compete on byte/dollar. You can get 10TB of magnetic drives for less than $200 while that much in SSD will cost you several times as much. (Certainly the gap narrows for smaller drives, and most users don't need that much space, so SSD by default makes sense.)
  - scarface74 7y ago
    That’s true. But I don’t really care about the performance of my external hard drives. They store movies, photos, etc where as long as the hard drive can keep up with the streaming requirements - any hard drive can - it doesn’t matter. The other purpose is backups. Again if my backups are slow, who cares?
    - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      > I don’t really care about the performance of my external hard drives. They store movies, photos, etc I care very very very much about the speed of the drive that stores my video files. I need to be able to open and seek through them quickly so I can find the clip I'm looking for. When you're working with ProRes stuff, this becomes a big deal. Luckily, good quality spinning hard drives can be fast enough, at least for my needs. Unfortunately, they're only fast enough when they're not running APFS. :(
      - jupp0r 7y ago
        > Luckily, good quality spinning hard drives can be fast enough, at least for my needs. Unfortunately, they're only fast enough when they're not running APFS. :( Nothing prevents you from putting for videos on an HFS+ volume and use it from Catalina. It just can't boot from one.
why_only_15 7y ago
fwiw it's nice to say this stuff but 2020 features have long gone been decided. on the schedule they are 2/3 done with feature development already.
Pamar 7y ago
fix the Time Machine issues Can someone please point out what the issues are? I am not challenging this statement, it is just that I am not aware of any specific issues with Time Machine so I am a bit worried about any problems (and if there is anything I can do to mitigate the risks). I am using a separate, third party cloud backup but I still count on Time Machine for day-to-day operations. Thanks in advance to anyone that could give me more info about this.
- colinb 7y ago
  In my own case, TM lost the ability to make new backups to an USB-connected HD. It doesn't report errors. It doesn't explain. Trying to find something useful in Console is a PITA. The only visible symptom is that a few minutes after each backup starts, it ends without copying all that it promised at the start of the process. I suspect the root cause is some 3rd party software interaction. But since the 3rd party software I have is installed and required by my employer, it's hard to do an A/B comparison.
  - Pamar 7y ago
    Thanks a lot for your contribution. You write: "The only visible symptom is that a few minutes after each backup starts, it ends without copying all that it promised at the start of the process." So you mean it ends "too quickly"? How can you tell if it missed some files?
  - kossTKR 7y ago
    i had the same problem which was fixed by having more free space on my local drive. I need + 15 gb free for TM swap stuff. Apple is notorious for not giving ANY feedback so i only found out after sesrching for a long time on google. Apple please stop silently failing without messages.
- gerardnll 7y ago
  I've lost my backup twice. OS says I have to redo the full backup because there's something wrong with it. I have a Time Capsule.
jwr 7y ago
Not upgrading either, because I have, you know, real work to do. Which is something that Apple seemingly does not understand these days. I don't care about marketing gimmicks, fancymoji, "mail stationery" or other crap. I care about having a stable operating system where I can get work done. I care about having a Mail.app that WORKS. I think we are in an unfortunate situation where Apple's solutions (hardware+software) are far better than the competition, but still suck. And competing with Apple these days is immensely difficult: you need to have huge capital reserves (which Microsoft has), and execute well on good combined hardware+software designs (this is where Microsoft doesn't quite hit the mark). I wish Apple had a competitor which would make "it Just Works" hardware and software. But I'm afraid we are stuck for the time being.
Eric_WVGG 7y ago
I’m surprised that nobody here is talking about this... Federighi and co had an internal mea culpa and announced some big changes to the way their internal development works. All signs point to this years releases being “snow” versions. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-21/apple-ios-14-features-changes-testing-after-ios-13-bugs https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-21/apple-ios...
musicale 7y ago
This is one of the big reasons why Snow Leopard is legendary as a favorite OS X (now macOS) release - it focused on reliability and performance rather than adding new features. I wish more software would follow that sort of major release cadence! Catalina could certainly do with a refinement release for internals (e.g. APFS) as well as UI polishing. Disclaimer: I've been using Catalina as my main OS since it came out.

macinjosh 7y ago

I have been using Catalina on my dev machine since the public beta and have none of the issues you claim. Catalina is my favorite macOS yet. Just because it doesn’t work the way you want doesn’t mean Apple messed up.

wool_gather 7y ago
Conversely, the fact that it works for you doesn't preclude it being buggy, or problematic in other ways, for other people.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- macinjosh 7y ago
  duh.
newscracker 7y ago
Does losing data when people use a product like they always do also count within the scope of "doesn't work the way you want" and mean that Apple didn't mess up?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
kjaroppsu 7y ago
Stop being a tool fanboy
catalogia 7y ago
I don't understand the motivation of "works for me" comments like this. Is your point that you believe other people are just hallucinating their problems, or that you believe they've 'used it wrong' and brought problems on themselves, or that if you personally haven't experienced a bug, then it's not an important bug?
- Terretta 7y ago
  > Is your point that you believe other people are just hallucinating their problems...? It happens when the sightings are emotional. For instance: The Colorado Mystery Drones Weren’t Real The mysterious drone sightings that captured national attention were a classic case of mass hysteria. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/884xv3/the-colorado-mystery-drones-werent-real https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/884xv3/the-colorado-myste... Flip side of same phenomenon is the "snappier" meme.
- zwily 7y ago
  I personally like seeing the “works for me” posts. It helps me gauge if the reported problems are universal, or just hitting a subset, which helps me decide when to roll the upgrade dice. BTW, I did finally upgrade to Catalina last week and it’s been going fine, with the exception of losing 50% of my Steam library to the 32-bit graveyard....
- macinjosh 7y ago
  I believe the vast majority of people, even those on hacker news, have no idea how their computer works. Mosy of the time PEBKAC is the problem. When someone loses their data because they don't know how to use a computer it is easy to just blame the vendor.
tacheiordache 7y ago
Nobody was complaining of the changes here but the fact that Catalina is littered with bugs. It’s absolutely impossible that the bugs somehow function well on your Catalina installation. I suspect you’re either a fanboy and that you put your judgement after your pride or maybe you are a light user and didn’t run into these bugs
- macinjosh 7y ago
  No you.

wool_gather 7y ago

> one feature release a year, followed by (another) one whole year for stabilization and tiny incremental improvements. In theory this is more or less what they have been doing (with both iOS and Mac), they just have been batching up the stabilization and slapping a whole new version number on it. But I don't disagree.

LeoTinnitus 7y ago

I said the same thing about Apples QA. I highly doubt they even do half the QA that the Ubuntu team does. It's like Apple is so cheap that they treat their users as their personal QA. They also don't like users who are a bit more advanced tech wise so they don't try to test what they may do. It's like they only want to sell to morons and suckers. Security wise I get that downloading something off of the internet is risky, but why the hell are you telling me that KNOWN gpl software downloaded from legitimate and verified sites could potentially be harmful? They treat their machines as a point of contact for the sake of making more money by channeling less savvy people through ways that require you to pay for something.

scarface74 7y ago

fix the performance issues of APFS on magnetic hard drives, Better yet, stop shipping iMacs with magnetic hard drives. This is 2020.

catalogia 7y ago
SSDs still can't compete on byte/dollar. You can get 10TB of magnetic drives for less than $200 while that much in SSD will cost you several times as much. (Certainly the gap narrows for smaller drives, and most users don't need that much space, so SSD by default makes sense.)
- scarface74 7y ago
  That’s true. But I don’t really care about the performance of my external hard drives. They store movies, photos, etc where as long as the hard drive can keep up with the streaming requirements - any hard drive can - it doesn’t matter. The other purpose is backups. Again if my backups are slow, who cares?
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    > I don’t really care about the performance of my external hard drives. They store movies, photos, etc I care very very very much about the speed of the drive that stores my video files. I need to be able to open and seek through them quickly so I can find the clip I'm looking for. When you're working with ProRes stuff, this becomes a big deal. Luckily, good quality spinning hard drives can be fast enough, at least for my needs. Unfortunately, they're only fast enough when they're not running APFS. :(
    - jupp0r 7y ago
      > Luckily, good quality spinning hard drives can be fast enough, at least for my needs. Unfortunately, they're only fast enough when they're not running APFS. :( Nothing prevents you from putting for videos on an HFS+ volume and use it from Catalina. It just can't boot from one.

why_only_15 7y ago

fwiw it's nice to say this stuff but 2020 features have long gone been decided. on the schedule they are 2/3 done with feature development already.

Pamar 7y ago

fix the Time Machine issues Can someone please point out what the issues are? I am not challenging this statement, it is just that I am not aware of any specific issues with Time Machine so I am a bit worried about any problems (and if there is anything I can do to mitigate the risks). I am using a separate, third party cloud backup but I still count on Time Machine for day-to-day operations. Thanks in advance to anyone that could give me more info about this.

colinb 7y ago
In my own case, TM lost the ability to make new backups to an USB-connected HD. It doesn't report errors. It doesn't explain. Trying to find something useful in Console is a PITA. The only visible symptom is that a few minutes after each backup starts, it ends without copying all that it promised at the start of the process. I suspect the root cause is some 3rd party software interaction. But since the 3rd party software I have is installed and required by my employer, it's hard to do an A/B comparison.
- Pamar 7y ago
  Thanks a lot for your contribution. You write: "The only visible symptom is that a few minutes after each backup starts, it ends without copying all that it promised at the start of the process." So you mean it ends "too quickly"? How can you tell if it missed some files?
- kossTKR 7y ago
  i had the same problem which was fixed by having more free space on my local drive. I need + 15 gb free for TM swap stuff. Apple is notorious for not giving ANY feedback so i only found out after sesrching for a long time on google. Apple please stop silently failing without messages.
gerardnll 7y ago
I've lost my backup twice. OS says I have to redo the full backup because there's something wrong with it. I have a Time Capsule.

jwr 7y ago

Not upgrading either, because I have, you know, real work to do. Which is something that Apple seemingly does not understand these days. I don't care about marketing gimmicks, fancymoji, "mail stationery" or other crap. I care about having a stable operating system where I can get work done. I care about having a Mail.app that WORKS. I think we are in an unfortunate situation where Apple's solutions (hardware+software) are far better than the competition, but still suck. And competing with Apple these days is immensely difficult: you need to have huge capital reserves (which Microsoft has), and execute well on good combined hardware+software designs (this is where Microsoft doesn't quite hit the mark). I wish Apple had a competitor which would make "it Just Works" hardware and software. But I'm afraid we are stuck for the time being.

Eric_WVGG 7y ago

I’m surprised that nobody here is talking about this... Federighi and co had an internal mea culpa and announced some big changes to the way their internal development works. All signs point to this years releases being “snow” versions. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-21/apple-ios-14-features-changes-testing-after-ios-13-bugs https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-21/apple-ios...

musicale 7y ago

This is one of the big reasons why Snow Leopard is legendary as a favorite OS X (now macOS) release - it focused on reliability and performance rather than adding new features. I wish more software would follow that sort of major release cadence! Catalina could certainly do with a refinement release for internals (e.g. APFS) as well as UI polishing. Disclaimer: I've been using Catalina as my main OS since it came out.