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> There's a cabal that seems to only want new features and never tackle existing bugs in the OS. Huh. That sounds strikingly similar to the culture breakdowns

> There's a cabal that seems to only want new features and never tackle existing bugs in the OS. Huh. That sounds strikingly similar to the culture breakdowns I've observed be associated with Google - the whole focus on newness and landing features in the name of solving hard problems, as opposed to maintaining stuff. Apparently the feedback/peer review/bonus system is completely broken. ...Maybe this sort of scaling problem is a "$T+ market cap" thing that we've just never had to figure out before?

giantrobot 4y ago
With Apple there's a pathological need to release new devices and OSes on a yearly cadence. Landing a new feature rewards middle management and the top quintile of ICs with cash/stock bonuses and reflects on their end of year review. Fixing bugs does not get those rewards so there's little incentive to fix old bugs that 1) don't prevent a new feature's implementation or 2) aren't called out in a security release. > ...Maybe this sort of scaling problem is a "$T+ market cap" thing that we've just never had to figure out before? I don't know in all honesty. I'm sure part of it has something to do with the fact these companies have billions of customers. It's a mind numbing number of users. Even a single percentile change in the number of customers or revenue per customer makes for huge revenue differences. So given a finite amount of developer effort, a new feature which is likely to increase revenue is incentivized over a stupid AirPlay bug that isn't likely to increase revenue.
throwawayFanta 4y ago
It depends on if that aligns with your management's views. In aws, ive seen teams spend some effort on keeping their backlog low (but no zero) since if it balloons out of control you know you're gonna get called out on it. i recall a team that had all its feature releases struck down for the coming year so they would work through their backlog. Opinions are my own, bla bla bla
joshspankit 4y ago
The market responds to newness, and if you can sweep issues under the rug you get two very lucrative demographics: 1) Customers who barely do anything with their devices and therefore never have issues 2) Fans who experience issues, but accept them as a bump in the road towards the dream they’ve been sold And this is at a cost-savings: less in R&D (because you can patch in-field), less in maintenance hours, and less opportunity cost for having “10x” devs do that maintenance. There’s also a fear-based reason for companies to chase features: they worry that the market will see them as stagnant and see the competitors as exciting.

giantrobot 4y ago

With Apple there's a pathological need to release new devices and OSes on a yearly cadence. Landing a new feature rewards middle management and the top quintile of ICs with cash/stock bonuses and reflects on their end of year review. Fixing bugs does not get those rewards so there's little incentive to fix old bugs that 1) don't prevent a new feature's implementation or 2) aren't called out in a security release. > ...Maybe this sort of scaling problem is a "$T+ market cap" thing that we've just never had to figure out before? I don't know in all honesty. I'm sure part of it has something to do with the fact these companies have billions of customers. It's a mind numbing number of users. Even a single percentile change in the number of customers or revenue per customer makes for huge revenue differences. So given a finite amount of developer effort, a new feature which is likely to increase revenue is incentivized over a stupid AirPlay bug that isn't likely to increase revenue.

throwawayFanta 4y ago

It depends on if that aligns with your management's views. In aws, ive seen teams spend some effort on keeping their backlog low (but no zero) since if it balloons out of control you know you're gonna get called out on it. i recall a team that had all its feature releases struck down for the coming year so they would work through their backlog. Opinions are my own, bla bla bla

joshspankit 4y ago

The market responds to newness, and if you can sweep issues under the rug you get two very lucrative demographics: 1) Customers who barely do anything with their devices and therefore never have issues 2) Fans who experience issues, but accept them as a bump in the road towards the dream they’ve been sold And this is at a cost-savings: less in R&D (because you can patch in-field), less in maintenance hours, and less opportunity cost for having “10x” devs do that maintenance. There’s also a fear-based reason for companies to chase features: they worry that the market will see them as stagnant and see the competitors as exciting.