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Do you think this problem is intractable? I often wonder how Apple can keep posting these quarterly results of a gazillion dollars and still not reply to my Fe

by manmal 4y ago

Do you think this problem is intractable? I often wonder how Apple can keep posting these quarterly results of a gazillion dollars and still not reply to my Feedbacks for months or years - of things that are very clearly broken! As a dev, I‘m paying them ca 2k per year in hardware costs. Sure sounds like the incentives to really fix this would be there. Apple often claim they are among the most innovative companies. They don’t seem particularly innovative in this space. Eg. the Feedback app looks like it’s been made by a single person over the span of a week.

ggm 4y ago
I don't think the problem is intractable, but I also don't think the problem is going to be fixed very soon. It's like google. I doubt any googlers here like it when people use "complain on HN" to fix "my account was locked" stuffups. The bottom line is that with 125,000 employees for 1.5 billion users, they don't have much choice unless people pay. (I paid for google one in part to have at least SOME paid access to helpdesk and so far, they've been very nice) Apple is very focussed on profit. There often is very little profit in this space and the more time it sucks to decide #WONTFIX the more it cost you. In that model, which is not a good model, but in that model, doing less engagement pays back better if you make really really good product with low overall bug/problems. For more normal people making normal things, its suicidally bad. Ignore your customers at your peril.
cmeacham98 4y ago
> I often wonder how Apple can keep posting these quarterly results of a gazillion dollars and still not reply to my Feedbacks for months or years - of things that are very clearly broken! I mean, you said it yourself: > I‘m paying them ca 2k per year in hardware costs. Despite the fact Apple hasn't responded in years, you still pay them 2k a year. Companies exist to make a profit, and Apple has seemingly correctly identified that they can skimp on this area and people will still send them money.
- feet 4y ago
  [flagged]
spoonjim 4y ago
They could permanently lose every customer who has ever sent them a Feedback and the CFO wouldn’t even notice
- lapcat 4y ago
  > They could permanently lose every customer who has ever sent them a Feedback and the CFO wouldn’t even notice Most of the customers who file Feedbacks are app developers, so yes, they would notice, because the App Store would suddenly be empty.
nickelpro 4y ago
Apple sells around 300 million devices a year. So has somewhere north of a billion active devices at any given moment. ~1k new apps ship on the app store each day, so >365k per year. Apple has ~154k employees. It's a completely intractable problem. No single person or developer matters in the smallest way. Any complaint or bug that doesn't break at least 5 digit numbers is invisible unless you're paying for Apple's engineering time. It's a function of the numbers in play.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
makeitdouble 4y ago
The responses in the other threads about paying for additional support tickets are I think the solution you are pointing at. You'll be paying 2k per year in hardware wether Apple invests more in support or not so I'm not sure it works as an incentive. Your option would be to drop out of iOS development and move to windows or linux, but that's probably not a statistically relevant portion of devs from Apple's perspective. Then qualified engineering time (having people able to write that reply about the extra parameter) really doesn't scale, so price-gatekeeping the service also seems logical from a business perspective.
- manmal 4y ago
  But those are bugs in their APIs, often very blatant ones. Would you feel good about paying for that to get fixed? IMO Apple needs to take care of that walled garden they are creating.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    I see it as a fact of life: there will be bugs, and wether your particular bug gets prioritized will depend on many factors otherwise out of your control. Apple will have a never ending list of legitimate bugs and improvements to work on, so it comes down to wether you really care about the issue you’re facing or you’re fine to leave it to the odds to get solved or not.
vlovich123 4y ago
Organizationally it’s challenging in a few ways. 1. From your perspective you’ve filed an issue that perfectly describes the problem. 90% of the time the engineer doesn’t actually have enough information and needs follow up. 90% of that time the bug just isn’t actionable because it’s somehow reliant on the user’s configuration OR requires extra logging to be enabled that wasn’t. 2. There’s so many communication layers between you and where the ticket needs to get to to answer your question. That routing takes time. Apple has a big enough challenge managing this just from internal bug tickets. 3. Organizationally Apple is in a no win state. One engineer having a bad day and responding poorly on a ticket impacts their image and generates a news cycle. So now every response needs to be filtered through someone who’s only job is to manage public engineer comms. This is a low value spend for Apple. 4. Some responses might be something like “this will be fixed next release “. Culturally that kind of response would be an anathema at Apple because of the secrecy. 5. Point 4 interacts with point 1 - they don’t want engineers talking in random environments to customers (WWDC is a very controlled environment, the engineers get some training, and it happens just after they’ve announced most things for the year so the opportunity for accidental leaks is smaller). 6. Engineers have a fuckton of responsibilities already. You have to screen a bunch of bugs, develop new software on insane timelines, manage tech debt, keep up with internal trainings, etc. Could they do a better job? Are there cultural things at Apple that inhibit these things? Yes. I’m sure Apple is trying to fix some of them. But some of these things are trade offs between how Apple chooses to run their business and there aren’t easy answers (if there were these problems wouldn’t exist). On a personal note, as someone who’s managing a fraction of the volume some of their products get and trying to stay very involved with the community, it’s extremely distracting and demoralizing at times (some users can be very entitled to the point that they’re a distraction and taking away value from the community outreach that’s happening).
- soco 4y ago
  Is you comment directed at Apple or applies to every company doing support? Because I can have good support - and I had - from others, just never from big names, Apple or whatever. So sorry, I don't buy it. Good customer service can obviously be done, if the company cares about it, and Apple just doesn't care. Or Google. Or Facebook.
fragmede 4y ago
> Apple often claim they are among the most innovative companies. I see you’ve bought into their marketing!
- manmal 4y ago
  I have bought into marketing because I repeat their claim?

by manmal 4y ago

ggm 4y ago

I don't think the problem is intractable, but I also don't think the problem is going to be fixed very soon. It's like google. I doubt any googlers here like it when people use "complain on HN" to fix "my account was locked" stuffups. The bottom line is that with 125,000 employees for 1.5 billion users, they don't have much choice unless people pay. (I paid for google one in part to have at least SOME paid access to helpdesk and so far, they've been very nice) Apple is very focussed on profit. There often is very little profit in this space and the more time it sucks to decide #WONTFIX the more it cost you. In that model, which is not a good model, but in that model, doing less engagement pays back better if you make really really good product with low overall bug/problems. For more normal people making normal things, its suicidally bad. Ignore your customers at your peril.

cmeacham98 4y ago

> I often wonder how Apple can keep posting these quarterly results of a gazillion dollars and still not reply to my Feedbacks for months or years - of things that are very clearly broken! I mean, you said it yourself: > I‘m paying them ca 2k per year in hardware costs. Despite the fact Apple hasn't responded in years, you still pay them 2k a year. Companies exist to make a profit, and Apple has seemingly correctly identified that they can skimp on this area and people will still send them money.

feet 4y ago
[flagged]

spoonjim 4y ago

They could permanently lose every customer who has ever sent them a Feedback and the CFO wouldn’t even notice

lapcat 4y ago
> They could permanently lose every customer who has ever sent them a Feedback and the CFO wouldn’t even notice Most of the customers who file Feedbacks are app developers, so yes, they would notice, because the App Store would suddenly be empty.

nickelpro 4y ago

Apple sells around 300 million devices a year. So has somewhere north of a billion active devices at any given moment. ~1k new apps ship on the app store each day, so >365k per year. Apple has ~154k employees. It's a completely intractable problem. No single person or developer matters in the smallest way. Any complaint or bug that doesn't break at least 5 digit numbers is invisible unless you're paying for Apple's engineering time. It's a function of the numbers in play.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

makeitdouble 4y ago

The responses in the other threads about paying for additional support tickets are I think the solution you are pointing at. You'll be paying 2k per year in hardware wether Apple invests more in support or not so I'm not sure it works as an incentive. Your option would be to drop out of iOS development and move to windows or linux, but that's probably not a statistically relevant portion of devs from Apple's perspective. Then qualified engineering time (having people able to write that reply about the extra parameter) really doesn't scale, so price-gatekeeping the service also seems logical from a business perspective.

manmal 4y ago
But those are bugs in their APIs, often very blatant ones. Would you feel good about paying for that to get fixed? IMO Apple needs to take care of that walled garden they are creating.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  I see it as a fact of life: there will be bugs, and wether your particular bug gets prioritized will depend on many factors otherwise out of your control. Apple will have a never ending list of legitimate bugs and improvements to work on, so it comes down to wether you really care about the issue you’re facing or you’re fine to leave it to the odds to get solved or not.

vlovich123 4y ago

Organizationally it’s challenging in a few ways. 1. From your perspective you’ve filed an issue that perfectly describes the problem. 90% of the time the engineer doesn’t actually have enough information and needs follow up. 90% of that time the bug just isn’t actionable because it’s somehow reliant on the user’s configuration OR requires extra logging to be enabled that wasn’t. 2. There’s so many communication layers between you and where the ticket needs to get to to answer your question. That routing takes time. Apple has a big enough challenge managing this just from internal bug tickets. 3. Organizationally Apple is in a no win state. One engineer having a bad day and responding poorly on a ticket impacts their image and generates a news cycle. So now every response needs to be filtered through someone who’s only job is to manage public engineer comms. This is a low value spend for Apple. 4. Some responses might be something like “this will be fixed next release “. Culturally that kind of response would be an anathema at Apple because of the secrecy. 5. Point 4 interacts with point 1 - they don’t want engineers talking in random environments to customers (WWDC is a very controlled environment, the engineers get some training, and it happens just after they’ve announced most things for the year so the opportunity for accidental leaks is smaller). 6. Engineers have a fuckton of responsibilities already. You have to screen a bunch of bugs, develop new software on insane timelines, manage tech debt, keep up with internal trainings, etc. Could they do a better job? Are there cultural things at Apple that inhibit these things? Yes. I’m sure Apple is trying to fix some of them. But some of these things are trade offs between how Apple chooses to run their business and there aren’t easy answers (if there were these problems wouldn’t exist). On a personal note, as someone who’s managing a fraction of the volume some of their products get and trying to stay very involved with the community, it’s extremely distracting and demoralizing at times (some users can be very entitled to the point that they’re a distraction and taking away value from the community outreach that’s happening).

soco 4y ago
Is you comment directed at Apple or applies to every company doing support? Because I can have good support - and I had - from others, just never from big names, Apple or whatever. So sorry, I don't buy it. Good customer service can obviously be done, if the company cares about it, and Apple just doesn't care. Or Google. Or Facebook.

fragmede 4y ago

> Apple often claim they are among the most innovative companies. I see you’ve bought into their marketing!

manmal 4y ago
I have bought into marketing because I repeat their claim?