4 ms·

Early versions of Catalina were also not great. (Heck, early versions of any major macos release tend to be relatively buggy!) I think people tend to forget th

Early versions of Catalina were also not great. (Heck, early versions of any major macos release tend to be relatively buggy!) I think people tend to forget things like that, and only remember the later releases of an OS since that is the version they are likely switching off of it to the newer one. I personally have found big sir no more buggy than most releases. Better than some[1], worse than others. About middling. Not bad for it including new hardware (m1)! [1]: ye gods, remember how bad 10.10 was with discoveryd before they rolled back to mdnsresponder! yikes!

faitswulff 5y ago
I have to wonder if all issues with Apple's software quality are due to Apple redirecting resources to gracefully handling the Apple silicon transfer.
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  macOS quality has been declining for years. It can't all be due to the M1 transition.
  - acdha 5y ago
    This is a popular trope but I’d really want to see some supporting data. It’s notoriously hard to correct for only hearing from people who found something they don’t like, people assuming their experience is universally shared, and for people to tend to forget old problems.
    - fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
      Anecdotally, I think Big Sur is better than either Mojave or Catalina: in my experience, it solves a lot of the bugs I was trying to avoid by sticking with High Sierra.
  - S_A_P 5y ago
    You would think that with each release being so much worse than previous versions that eventually OSX would quit booting up and become nothing more than a proof of concept. So much hyperbole in this thread. A solid subset of users declares that the sky is falling and this is the end for Apple. Rinse and repeat with each iteration. I am not saying there haven’t been missteps, but it ain’t all bad. My personal experience with Big Sur has largely been a non event and I have tons of boutique usb synthesizers audio interfaces and software. I use windows Mac and dabble in a few Linux distros. None are perfect but they’re all pretty good.
    - Benjamin_Dobell 5y ago
      Does Big Sur let you loopback audio out yet, or are third-party extensions still required? Do Soundflower & BlackHole even work on M1? The fact there hasn't been native loopback for so long is mind-boggling. I'm a Mac user and use BlackHole. I've lost count of the number of times I've been on a call and someone with a Mac has gone to share screen and been confused as to why their audio isn't being shared. COVID/WFH has made this a regular occurrence.
      - faitswulff 5y ago
        Counterpoint: I don’t know or care what that feature is and I’ve never encountered anyone complaining about it.
        coldtea 5y ago
        It's basically sending your system audio to an audio channel (e.g. to an app). You could e.g. route a Skype call audio to record it. Handy when you need it, not exactly a metric for OS quality to offer one.
      - coldtea 5y ago
        >Does Big Sur let you loopback audio out yet, or are third-party extensions still required? Do Soundflower & BlackHole even work on M1? How is that relevant to a discussion about worsening software quality? OS X never had native loopback.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    Any real data, except of anecdotal "had this or that problem"? It seems to me macOS quality has been fine for years. And I've used it since 10.2.
- photojosh 5y ago
  The Apple Silicon transition is arguably something they have handled extremely well, with the only unknown being what the pro-level chip will be like. Hopefully it can all be over sooner rather than later and they can get back to work on general software quality.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  Catalina was a significant downgrade in quality and as far as I know the M1 wasn't a thing yet.
  - mattkrause 5y ago
    I assumed dropping 32-bit support was part of the wind-up for the M1 transition but maybe not.
  - BigBathtubLobby 5y ago
    Big Sur made it worse. For probably the greater part of the last 6-7 years I've felt Windows performs better on equivalent hardware (even after Mac OS fresh installs). By Big Sur it's so bad the latest Intel MacBooks chug on it. That said, the M1 changes things, IME. It's just sad it takes that much.
tolmasky 5y ago
Later versions of Catalina remain not great. The problem is that each version of macOS compounds onto the next, since there's no time for the "tock" after the "tick" anymore. Sure, catastrophic bugs may get fixed, but some stuff just seems to degrade forever (I can't remember the last time drag and drop worked like I expected to... even on Apple apps). The OS usually launches around November, and By WWDC, we're already being told about macOS N + 1 and getting betas of that, so you basically get half a year of "bug fixes," before focus shifts to the next release. There's no "stable" period anymore. Tiger through Lion had a 2-year release cycle. Ever since Mountain Lion, it's been a 1-year cycle. Further complicating this is that these have included unintuitively "ambitious" (or at least "labor intensive") changes. Big Sur was a UI redesign that touched the entire system. But let's not forget that Mojave was also a huge undertaking to get everything working with Dark Mode (both for Apple developers and third party developers). Meanwhile entire suites of apps get thrown out and the rewrites are used to dogfood Catalyst. It's just infinite churn. The core of the technology has taken on the properties of fashion. And that is just not a great recipe for stability. I've personally chosen to try to approximate the missing "tock" cycle by upgrading to every other macOS. Clearly this is nowhere near the same benefit of Apple actually dedicating a full year and a half to a release, but at least I don't have to go through the (largely arbitrary) UI changes every year or so, and I have the "bugs I know" to deal with vs. the ones I don't yet know about.
- photojosh 5y ago
  I just moved on to Big Sur since I got an M1... the previous MBP was on High Sierra, so you can imagine my culture shock! Big Sur reminds me of nothing more than Windows XP, and that's not a compliment.
  - philistine 5y ago
    I’ve taken a big liking to Big Sur. It is a graceful evolution of the UI that needs a lot more precision work (like Preferences, the menu bar shortcuts and Notifications) but it’s a solid base for the next couple of years.
    - 5y ago

faitswulff 5y ago

I have to wonder if all issues with Apple's software quality are due to Apple redirecting resources to gracefully handling the Apple silicon transfer.

AlexandrB 5y ago
macOS quality has been declining for years. It can't all be due to the M1 transition.
- acdha 5y ago
  This is a popular trope but I’d really want to see some supporting data. It’s notoriously hard to correct for only hearing from people who found something they don’t like, people assuming their experience is universally shared, and for people to tend to forget old problems.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
    Anecdotally, I think Big Sur is better than either Mojave or Catalina: in my experience, it solves a lot of the bugs I was trying to avoid by sticking with High Sierra.
- S_A_P 5y ago
  You would think that with each release being so much worse than previous versions that eventually OSX would quit booting up and become nothing more than a proof of concept. So much hyperbole in this thread. A solid subset of users declares that the sky is falling and this is the end for Apple. Rinse and repeat with each iteration. I am not saying there haven’t been missteps, but it ain’t all bad. My personal experience with Big Sur has largely been a non event and I have tons of boutique usb synthesizers audio interfaces and software. I use windows Mac and dabble in a few Linux distros. None are perfect but they’re all pretty good.
  - Benjamin_Dobell 5y ago
    Does Big Sur let you loopback audio out yet, or are third-party extensions still required? Do Soundflower & BlackHole even work on M1? The fact there hasn't been native loopback for so long is mind-boggling. I'm a Mac user and use BlackHole. I've lost count of the number of times I've been on a call and someone with a Mac has gone to share screen and been confused as to why their audio isn't being shared. COVID/WFH has made this a regular occurrence.
    - faitswulff 5y ago
      Counterpoint: I don’t know or care what that feature is and I’ve never encountered anyone complaining about it.
      - coldtea 5y ago
        It's basically sending your system audio to an audio channel (e.g. to an app). You could e.g. route a Skype call audio to record it. Handy when you need it, not exactly a metric for OS quality to offer one.
    - coldtea 5y ago
      >Does Big Sur let you loopback audio out yet, or are third-party extensions still required? Do Soundflower & BlackHole even work on M1? How is that relevant to a discussion about worsening software quality? OS X never had native loopback.
- coldtea 5y ago
  Any real data, except of anecdotal "had this or that problem"? It seems to me macOS quality has been fine for years. And I've used it since 10.2.
photojosh 5y ago
The Apple Silicon transition is arguably something they have handled extremely well, with the only unknown being what the pro-level chip will be like. Hopefully it can all be over sooner rather than later and they can get back to work on general software quality.
Nextgrid 5y ago
Catalina was a significant downgrade in quality and as far as I know the M1 wasn't a thing yet.
- mattkrause 5y ago
  I assumed dropping 32-bit support was part of the wind-up for the M1 transition but maybe not.
- BigBathtubLobby 5y ago
  Big Sur made it worse. For probably the greater part of the last 6-7 years I've felt Windows performs better on equivalent hardware (even after Mac OS fresh installs). By Big Sur it's so bad the latest Intel MacBooks chug on it. That said, the M1 changes things, IME. It's just sad it takes that much.

tolmasky 5y ago

Later versions of Catalina remain not great. The problem is that each version of macOS compounds onto the next, since there's no time for the "tock" after the "tick" anymore. Sure, catastrophic bugs may get fixed, but some stuff just seems to degrade forever (I can't remember the last time drag and drop worked like I expected to... even on Apple apps). The OS usually launches around November, and By WWDC, we're already being told about macOS N + 1 and getting betas of that, so you basically get half a year of "bug fixes," before focus shifts to the next release. There's no "stable" period anymore. Tiger through Lion had a 2-year release cycle. Ever since Mountain Lion, it's been a 1-year cycle. Further complicating this is that these have included unintuitively "ambitious" (or at least "labor intensive") changes. Big Sur was a UI redesign that touched the entire system. But let's not forget that Mojave was also a huge undertaking to get everything working with Dark Mode (both for Apple developers and third party developers). Meanwhile entire suites of apps get thrown out and the rewrites are used to dogfood Catalyst. It's just infinite churn. The core of the technology has taken on the properties of fashion. And that is just not a great recipe for stability. I've personally chosen to try to approximate the missing "tock" cycle by upgrading to every other macOS. Clearly this is nowhere near the same benefit of Apple actually dedicating a full year and a half to a release, but at least I don't have to go through the (largely arbitrary) UI changes every year or so, and I have the "bugs I know" to deal with vs. the ones I don't yet know about.

photojosh 5y ago
I just moved on to Big Sur since I got an M1... the previous MBP was on High Sierra, so you can imagine my culture shock! Big Sur reminds me of nothing more than Windows XP, and that's not a compliment.
- philistine 5y ago
  I’ve taken a big liking to Big Sur. It is a graceful evolution of the UI that needs a lot more precision work (like Preferences, the menu bar shortcuts and Notifications) but it’s a solid base for the next couple of years.
  - 5y ago