5 ms·

It’s possible they will do both. Fixing bugs isn’t really keynote worthy, so hopefully there’s a ton of stability fixes behind the scenes.

jmchuster 6y ago
It was keynote-worthy for Snow Leopard, with the infamous "0 new features" slide.
- snowwrestler 6y ago
  Sure but Snow Leopard had serious bugs when it launched too. It was only in later dot releases that it got its reputation for stability.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    I didn't switch to Mac until about halfway through Snow Leopard's lifespan. I'm aware of the big data loss bug—and that's serious for sure—but if you weren't one of the very unlucky few (relatively) to run into it, was 10.6.0 buggy in other ways?
- ianai 6y ago
  That’s why I have hopes for them to come back and square up the Mac platform to where it should be for stability and usability. They could have been treating the whole platform as a beta for what they want to make of it after the move to their own silicon for many years now - perhaps even a decade. They’ve been well financed for as long. They also seem to have something like institutional anti-ADHD in so far as they can really only “nail” one product down well at a time.
- pfranz 6y ago
  "0 new features" was marketing that seems to have worked quite well. I can't remember where, but I swear I remember hearing that later from people at Apple. The major thing is they didn't do a big UI refresh. In Snow Leopard they: finally rewrote Finder in Cocoa, released Quicktime X, shipped a 64bit kernel, released Grand Central Dispatch, released OpenCL. Plus a bunch of smaller updates and tweaks. They dropped included things like printer drivers (which now download on demand) which make the install size smaller.
cytzol 6y ago
It's possible they will do both, and I hope they do! I should add the disclaimer that I didn't actually expect them to talk about stability or Catalina's woes, for general corporate "avoid talking about things that make us look bad" reasons. Mentioning bug fixes inadvertently draws attention to the fact you added bugs; claiming increased stability highlights that the OS was once unstable. This is why Snow Leopard's "no new features" tagline was so memorable — it's so rare for a company to outright claim something like that. But I have to ask myself: why this release? Why fix bugs in Big Sur, but not Catalina or Mojave? For example, the annoying bug where Mail randomly becomes the active application[1] has been floating around for years and still isn't fixed, and there are only two reasons for this: Apple is stretched too thin and can't spare the developers to work on bug fixes, or Apple doesn't care, and is simply willing to let the Mac languish, taking the reputation hit in favour of increased iPhone sales. The fact that they've overhauled the entire interface means it's not the first one — they do have enough resources to make large, sweeping changes to the OS. So I will be absolutely unsurprised if, ten months from now, I decide to upgrade to Big Sur on a whim, and a couple of minutes in, Mail pops up once more. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23359820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23359820
cuddlybacon 6y ago
I've also seen it reacted to very negatively when announced.
- ianai 6y ago
  I don’t remember this but it’s credible. Can you dredge your any links from back then?
  - cuddlybacon 6y ago
    I wasn't specifically thinking about Apple, but a game I play. When I dug up the history on Reddit, it was a single troll commenting on every dev diary post.
minikites 6y ago
>It’s possible they will do both. Unlikely, given their recent track record. They'll just ignore the bugs in this release until the next big release like they've been doing for the past few versions.

jmchuster 6y ago

It was keynote-worthy for Snow Leopard, with the infamous "0 new features" slide.

snowwrestler 6y ago
Sure but Snow Leopard had serious bugs when it launched too. It was only in later dot releases that it got its reputation for stability.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  I didn't switch to Mac until about halfway through Snow Leopard's lifespan. I'm aware of the big data loss bug—and that's serious for sure—but if you weren't one of the very unlucky few (relatively) to run into it, was 10.6.0 buggy in other ways?
ianai 6y ago
That’s why I have hopes for them to come back and square up the Mac platform to where it should be for stability and usability. They could have been treating the whole platform as a beta for what they want to make of it after the move to their own silicon for many years now - perhaps even a decade. They’ve been well financed for as long. They also seem to have something like institutional anti-ADHD in so far as they can really only “nail” one product down well at a time.
pfranz 6y ago
"0 new features" was marketing that seems to have worked quite well. I can't remember where, but I swear I remember hearing that later from people at Apple. The major thing is they didn't do a big UI refresh. In Snow Leopard they: finally rewrote Finder in Cocoa, released Quicktime X, shipped a 64bit kernel, released Grand Central Dispatch, released OpenCL. Plus a bunch of smaller updates and tweaks. They dropped included things like printer drivers (which now download on demand) which make the install size smaller.

cytzol 6y ago

It's possible they will do both, and I hope they do! I should add the disclaimer that I didn't actually expect them to talk about stability or Catalina's woes, for general corporate "avoid talking about things that make us look bad" reasons. Mentioning bug fixes inadvertently draws attention to the fact you added bugs; claiming increased stability highlights that the OS was once unstable. This is why Snow Leopard's "no new features" tagline was so memorable — it's so rare for a company to outright claim something like that. But I have to ask myself: why this release? Why fix bugs in Big Sur, but not Catalina or Mojave? For example, the annoying bug where Mail randomly becomes the active application[1] has been floating around for years and still isn't fixed, and there are only two reasons for this: Apple is stretched too thin and can't spare the developers to work on bug fixes, or Apple doesn't care, and is simply willing to let the Mac languish, taking the reputation hit in favour of increased iPhone sales. The fact that they've overhauled the entire interface means it's not the first one — they do have enough resources to make large, sweeping changes to the OS. So I will be absolutely unsurprised if, ten months from now, I decide to upgrade to Big Sur on a whim, and a couple of minutes in, Mail pops up once more. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23359820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23359820

cuddlybacon 6y ago

I've also seen it reacted to very negatively when announced.

ianai 6y ago
I don’t remember this but it’s credible. Can you dredge your any links from back then?
- cuddlybacon 6y ago
  I wasn't specifically thinking about Apple, but a game I play. When I dug up the history on Reddit, it was a single troll commenting on every dev diary post.

minikites 6y ago

>It’s possible they will do both. Unlikely, given their recent track record. They'll just ignore the bugs in this release until the next big release like they've been doing for the past few versions.