I’m a huge Apple fan, and freely admit to working for Apple in two stints until my final retirement.
I was responsible for AppleCare teams in Australia and 3rd party vendor support sites in JAPAC, and in one ‘rotation’ for the across region and across management level meetings to discuss challenges arising immediately after new product releases.
I cannot recall any release during my time at Apple that came close to the clusterf.ck that is macOS 26.
It is full of bugs many of which on their own should have been cause for a delayed release.
Unlike some, I do like Tahoe, it’s just the insane level of bugs in this release and the impact it is having on developers and end customers alike.
This reminds me of the Apple Maps debacle that led to Scott Forstal’s sacking. Perhaps there are heads that should roll over this one.
As for any NDA I may have breached, I don’t give a f…
Had my rant, now I’ll go back to trying something productive.
Just realised I used an Apple internal term, ‘rotation’. It’s where you spend 6 months in a role, usually a higher level than the one you’re paid for. It can result in promotion if you do a good job (I got one) and was on another rotation when I got the diagnosis that required I retire immediately to focus on fighting to stay alive, and as a side impact resulted a few weeks into treatment in a ‘widow maker’ heart attack that I barely survived. (To Apple credit, I could have taken another extended medical leave on 75% pay, but at 70, I didn’t have the will to fight and worry about having to go back when and if I recovered). I did go back again a year later in an act of stupidity.
Rotations definitely a big bonus for Apple, try someone out in a more senior role temporarily to see if they are any good and to identify talent for future promotion. Good and bad for the ‘victim’, an opportunity to show your chops, but added pressure in hitting the ground running in a more senior and often unrelated to current experience, and always many more hours, all for the same old pay (and inevitable keeping an eye on your temporary replacement in your old role to make sure they don’t screw up your teams in your absence (it happened while I was on medical leave).
There, that really did breach the NDA. Apple, try getting blood from a stone…
As a new Apple MAC OS user, I must admit to being surprised at all the problems that the Scriv team is having with the OS. As a windows user I’m used to windows updates being a bit of a “good luck” event. Before buying my Mac I thought apple was well ahead in terms of OS stability. But this OS release has shattered that illusion. I am really shocked by how hard it is for the Scriv team to just keep their app running and how as a small dev team so much effort seems to be needed just to work around the problems that it looks like apple have created.
I also use scriv on windows. Fairly frequently there’s a post that goes along the lines of "Hey, the mac version has got all these updates, but not the win version. What gives? [subtext: we’re missing out]. Well, yeah, now I know what all those apple updates are for…
For what seem like a fairly underwhelming update to the apple OS, the amount of problems it has created, and the downstream cost, doesn’t seem warranted to me. I hope apple does a bit better next time and that this experience is not the norm.
Don’t get me wrong. At core it’s a solid OS and will be great under the hood with time.
Love or hate the new look, but I see some sense to it, especially in tandem with powering up iPadOS.
IMHO, they just got themselves locked into a timeline and no one had the balls to call pause.
Having been on the receiving end of a ‘please explain’ when a team member is rightly or wrongly accused by a customer who writes to Tim Cook and had to respond within 48 hours to him with valid or invalid complaint, solutions if valid, and ‘learning experiences’ to impart on the team, the pressure to not rock or do anything that sticks your head up can be pretty overwhelming. Careers can be made or broken in the span of an email.
I guess it’s not that different to most major multinationals - I recall having to report to Lord Weinstock in my GEC (anyone remember Britain’s once largest employer after government?) days because one of the magic 7 ratios was fractionally off, and defend a decision to not cut headcount in ANZ. I survived that one despite being warned it was a potential kiss of death. Guess my bullshit must have sounded plausible. - That’s why I’m an ‘author’
Let’s just say there’s a reason why I often wait 6 months or more before updating Mac OS.
In this particular case, Apple made an enormous number of UI changes under the hood, and also seems to have been overly committed to their release schedule. Updates are often not great, but this one has been especially “entertaining.”
I don’t actually hate it. I don’t like it, but I’m only really slightly below indifferent, I’d say (opinion gleaned purely from photos and videos — I’ve not installed).
I’ve sat down and watched all the design identify videos from wwdc and (aside from the obvious technical expertise that went into the development) two thoughts occurred to me:
I can’t shake the feeling that the genesis of this was a conversation purely about selling iPhones. I.e, someone in Apple realised that few (if any?) people actually need their phone (essentially just a media consumption device for many) to be any more powerful than they are today (were 4 years ago?). So they had to invent an OS that was resource hungrier to justify increasing processing power and upgrades.
(Yes it’s a bit conspiracy theoryish but it seems so damn extravagant otherwise!)
The tone of the videos was pretty clear (in one spot almost aggressively)… your company’s brand identity is not as important as Apple’s. You should update your logos, branding, UIs, everything really to match Apple’s design approach and branding. Thinking of having your own app ecosystem that works consistently with a common feel across Android and Windows? Well, don’t.
For all of this, my main reason for not upgrading remains that the trend in computing is towards providing assistance tools that help (what in my mind are) unsophisticated users, with deeper integration of AI tools, templates. presets, wizards (as they used to be called?), automations, animations, and making decisions (especially creative ones) on behalf of the user. It is increasingly hard to buy a computer or software (or indeed other tech like a camera or a tumble dryer) that lets me make decisions by myself without at least interrupting me to try and help. This progression is inevitable, but I don’t have to willingly go along and I certainly don’t need to run to keep up at the cutting edge of it.
I do hope that they’re able to resolve the issues soon. I’m a little worried that their response to developer bug reports so far is discouraging. (Again, purely in my imagination) I can see an Apple exec sitting looking reports at these saying “I don’t get why so many app developers have dropped the ball this time. We gave them a decent developer window where we showed them exactly what the OS would and wouldn’t do. Why did they try and programme their apps for things the OS wouldn’t do?”
Every now and then I seriously consider whether I should call it quits with Apple products. That feeling always ends the second I see an Android phone, or a video of something like Final Draft’s Windows version.
PS - sorry to hear about your medical issues, RuffPub. Hopefully all behind you now. Best wishes!
I think most of the issues will be resolved in 26.1.0, from what I’ve been reading (I’ve not tested the newer beta yet). 26.0.1 fixed very little.
I don’t hate Liquid Glass, but I really, really wish they’d spent more time working through everything. Many of the UI issues I’ve had to deal with are not subtle, or edge case—they are obviouse, user-impacting and (worst of all) accessiblity impacting. There was no excuse for that. I guess Apple’s marketing machine rolls over all and everyone, and there’s no stopping it once it gets going.
Federighi has been the head of the software development for sixteen years. I can’t say that what Apple has done with their OS during these nearly two decades is short of extraordinary.
More that pointing to the technical floor, I would check on the management level. You can’t make a revolution in the same time of ordinary maintenance.
The issue that needed the immediate attention is going okay.
As for the heart attacks. The Widow Maker was during Covid and my wife was allowed in for a goodbye as they prepared theatre for a team that had been called in from their beds at ~11pm and advised to contact children who were within a short distance, but 4 years and several more heart attacks later I’m still inflicting myself on the universe.
Finally a Scottish cardiologist & professor working out here worked out what causes them (apart from the obvious of demolishing and rebuilding a house at my age). Took inducing one on the table with a camera in there to prove his theory. Not the most amazing experience, but educational. The pics and video are used in his lectures.
We were in the Netherlands last week staying with my niece who spoke of being given a lift by one of her underlings, who she said couldn’t drive without setting the satnav to control the route, lane assist to keep her on the right line, detectors controlling distance from other vehicles, automated parking… basically all she could do was hold the steering wheel and steer where she was told by the satnav voice. I find that appalling.
Me too, except I then think about having to give up NWP, Omnigraffle, Final Cut Pro, Audio Hijack, Amadeus Pro, Transmit, Graphic Converter… apps that I am comfortable with (and have shelled out for as necessary over many years) not to forget the Mac version of Scrivener!
Mrs PF and I were at the cinema last week and there was an advert before the trailers featuring a daughter driving her anxious dad. The dad would keep being about to say something like “look out for that truck about to hit you” when the car would beep and flash lights and do the job for him. It did this in about 5 different ways before the daughter finally parked safely and said “relax dad”. The advert then ended.
I turned to Mrs PF and said “So it’s like having a panicky nagging father in the car at all times?” Mrs PF nodded and said “if you need any one of those lights to go off you should have your license pulled.” [1]
If you ever wonder who actually wants AI and all these other assistive “improvements”, wonder no longer. It’s these morons. Can you imagine going through life without taking any joy from activity, only from outputs? These people don’t fear the robot apocalypse because they’re praying for it.
We used to laugh at people who couldn’t change a plug. These weak helpless GenZ fools, raised by Millennials, are Eloi. We GenX are the Morlocks. We have built the world they live in and when we get hungry enough we will eat them.
it was an advert. Mild mocking of the adverts is allowed. No talking during the movie or the trailers, though, people. ↩︎
Long term Apple user here. Not a fan of the look of MacOs 26, but bugs? I guess I am too casual of a user to see them.
Also I am never going back to MS Windows. Used Linux for work, and despite have a ‘desktop’ interface with some versions its just doesn’t have the wide set of apps available.
Personally I would prefer that they stop messing around with look and feel, and focus on functionality.
Topics like this always leave me wondering if I’m lucky (or others unlucky), less observant, or less picky than I think.
The only noticeable bug I’ve found is with a third-party browser (it hangs without beachballing), which I presume that developer will fix soon.
The only regression I notice is Safari losing the compact tab bar (I definitely miss it).
Otherwise? I love the new design. I’m not pixel hunting, so I don’t notice if some corner radii are different, and I thankfully have no crashers, hangs, data loss, etc.
Actually, I would say I’m like you in that, but I still wish (for KB and other developers’ sake!) that Apple would give more attention to things like sorting out lists, tables etc. in TextKit and/or continue the development of TextKit 2, rather than putting so much time and resources into continually tweaking/changing the UI.
But I haven’t upgraded yet and won’t until at least 26.1 (or if an app I really want to use requires 26!) and I haven’t spent time looking at images to see the difference either.
Your post started perfectly sane. And ended like this:
I mean, seriously. Who would eat this shit?
A little more on topic than that, since it somehow always comes up: Personally, I don’t mind the new design language. Yeah, it has some flaws here and there and Apple is still figuring it out (as seen in beta 26.1). It will be fine in the end.
I’m just mad that they released 26 in this sorry state. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a late alpha, if I’ve ever seen one. Maybe an early beta. Maybe. They knew it and rolled it out regardless.
But sometimes you need to have the balls to say: “Sorry, it doesn’t meet our high standards yet. We’re almost there. Give us four to six weeks to get it right.”
