Why Apple needs to sort out its quality control issues
Nice picture, but what about the bugs? · Source: techradar.com
Nobody misses this... · Source: discussions.apple.com
A lot of pro studios and producers use Macs. In fact in my years spent in the industry I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the times I’ve seen a Windows PC being used for high-end music production. They exist of course, but they’re rare. There’s a problem though: in the last couple of years, OS X hasn’t “just worked” like it used to. Apple’s pitch was always that although you paid more, you also got more. In the days before Windows became more usable as a serious music platform and wouldn’t just throw endless technical errors at you (around the time of Windows 7), the Mac was blissfully different. You plugged stuff in and it worked 99.9% of the time.
In those days Apple was a much smaller company. The iPod didn’t require vast software engineering resources and the focus was still very much on OS X. Then the iPhone happened, and quickly came to dwarf the sales of every other Apple product in terms of profits. Perhaps not surprisingly, Apple has devoted a huge amount of attention to developing iOS since then. It runs on far more devices than OS X and is many peoples’ main experience of the Apple ecosystem.
The problem with that is that OS X has been getting a little sloppy. It’s still an excellent operating system, but it has more serious bugs in it at release than it used to, and some don’t even get fixed. And I’m not talking about obscure stuff here. I’m talking about the fact that when El Capitan was first released, it broke Audio Units plug-ins for a lot of people. It has caused issues with some audio interfaces from major manufacturers. My MacBook Pro now only has a 50/50 chance of successfully waking from sleep, for no particular reason. Mail frequently opens two or three versions of its main window – something that should not be possible. Wireless networking seemed to get pretty fried with 10.10 and hasn’t really improved in 10.11. This is important stuff for professionals.
It pains me to say it, but Apple needs to take OS X more seriously. Plenty of people will still pay a premium for a Mac but not if they have to put up with software irritations that would once have been considered sacrilege if they were released by Apple. Surely a company worth several gazillion dollars can manage to work on iOS and OS X and give both the attention they deserve.
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