iOS 13.1.1 now available

[W9TR]

Stephen - great summary!
I’d argue that Apple never really had the plot. I think they are a great design house and a shabby engineering house. This goes back way before the iPhone 3 days and antenna gate. It goes back to the disastrous Apple III overheating problems that Jobs personally created and which nearly sunk the company.

There were great successes- the iPod, iPad, iPhone and Apple Music just to name a few. Jobs created all those offerings and they have all evolved nicely. But they were not trouble free from the beginning and I expect bumps along the way.

I have an iPhone 7+, an iPad, and an Apple Watch so I guess I am a fan - at least of the design. The engineering- not so much.

[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by antipop

And none of those happened during Steve Jobs? Antenna-gate (as ridiculous as it was) and "you're holding it wrong", all the lawsuits against anyone with ipod, iTunes or mac in its name (how many small business had to change their names?), the chase for thinness above anything else, the cracking plexi on the Cube,...

They're not losing the plot, it's always been who they are.

and...

Originally Posted by W9TR

Stephen - great summary!
I’d argue that Apple never really had the plot. I think they are a great design house and a shabby engineering house. This goes back way before the iPhone 3 days and antenna gate. It goes back to the disastrous Apple III overheating problems that Jobs personally created and which nearly sunk the company.

There were great successes- the iPod, iPad, iPhone and Apple Music just to name a few. Jobs created all those offerings and they have all evolved nicely. But they were not trouble free from the beginning and I expect bumps along the way.

I have an iPhone 7+, an iPad, and an Apple Watch so I guess I am a fan - at least of the design. The engineering- not so much.

Hi Georges and Tom,
We know some basic facts when it comes to designing and manufacturing products: There are virtually no defect free processes or products. I don't mind "bumps along the road". As a DFSS MBB, I know this and don't have issues with it; its a fact of life. This is why I spent 10 years working as a Black Belt to help my company design and manufacture higher quality products.

My issue with Apple is how much WORSE they have gotten in the last 5 years or so. Both in the quality of their products, their increasingly poor product design, and the way they treat their customers.

The Louis Rossman video I linked showing incredibly stupid logic board design of having high-voltage display contacts next to very low-voltage graphics MUX or CPU contacts is an excellent example. Apple used to not do this stupid design behavior, and they made a decision to do this, because this failure-mode prone design was approved in the product design reviews that are part of their stage-gate development process.

Cases in point:

Apple, after having lost their lawsuit case against that small, 1-man shop in Norway is going after him again; they just won't let it go.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9...-henrik-huseby

This is, IMHO, being punitive for the sake of being punitive.

Zone of Tech has a very good video on his 2018 MBP experiences and poor performance quality of care he received at the Apple Store in the UK. He put together 4 GB of data and videos demonstrating the failure modes, Apple wouldn't even look at the data! https://youtu.be/IpFDlUoUazc

Snazzy Labs has very documented video showing the incredibly poor design and quality of materials used for mounting an iMac to a pivoting arm: https://youtu.be/MG_NRcy5mxU

Linus of LInus Tech Tips has a video demonstrating how Apple refused to fix his $5000 iMac: https://youtu.be/9-NU7yOSElE

As for Apple never really "having the plot", you may well be correct, but then Apple should have, like Fujifilm, a robust and vigorus Kaizen philosophy, program and initiatives. As far as I can tell, they do not. This does not change the fact that customers are entitled to high quality products that work without failure, can be legimately repaired at reasonable prices and provide value for customers over several years of use.

So, in conclusion, what I mind about Apple is a 1) consistent punitive practices and lawsuits against indepedent repair shops 2) consistently poor, stupid and failure-mode prone product design 3) a consistent practice of defrauding customers about repairs and 4) not supporting the customer with the care, support and, most importantly, respect they deserve, especially when paying many thousands of dollars for an Apple product.

[W9TR]

Stephen,
I agree with your assessment. I think things have gotten worse. If I had that kind of record with my team’s products a few things would have happened. First, people would have died. Second, I would have been fired. That’s the stakes when you and your team design safety critical products.

[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by W9TR

Stephen,
I agree with your assessment. I think things have gotten worse. If I had that kind of record with my team’s products a few things would have happened. First, people would have died. Second, I would have been fired. That’s the stakes when you and your team design safety critical products.

Knowing of your professional background and expertise, I fully agree, Tom.

Same for me: I designed genetic diagnostic tests for 1) screening newborns for Cystic Fibrosis, 2) diagnosing Familial Hypercholesterolemia 3)Non-hereditary non-polyposis colon cancer and 4) DNA forensics tests using in criminal trials.

Peoples lives depended on the quality of the product that my teams and I designed, made robust, and placed into Manufacturing Operations. "Failure" and "poor quality" were simply not an "option."

[Antonmb]

Originally Posted by Puma Cat

Knowing of your professional background and expertise, I fully agree, Tom.



Same for me: I designed genetic diagnostic tests for 1) screening newborns for Cystic Fibrosis, 2) diagnosing Familial Hypercholesterolemia 3)Non-hereditary non-polyposis colon cancer and 4) DNA forensics tests using in criminal trials.



Peoples lives depended on the quality of the product that my teams and I designed, made robust, and placed into Manufacturing Operations. "Failure" and "poor quality" were simply not an "option."

I’m with both of you. While my company was not making products as sophisticated as genetic diagnostic tests, we made ropes for applications like arborist climbing lines, tug boats, and mooring for LNGs and oil tankers. People get a little upset if a rope fails and they fall out of a tree, their tanker crashes into a dock, or they drop somebody they’re pulling off a cliff, so quality of both design and manufacture are critical, and design flaws unacceptable. I guess if your phone doesn’t work it’s not always as critical, but there certainly seem to have been a number of issues in the last few years. Having said that, I’ve purchased at least 8 iPads, 6 iPods, 6 iPhones, an iMac and a MacBook over the years and have never had a single hardware problem with any of them, which is more than I can say for PCs I’ve owned. Maybe I’ve just been lucky?

I suspect that part of the problem is the constant pressure in consumer electronics to be releasing something new and better every year. Disruptive innovations are few and far between, so companies feel the pressure to be constantly be doing something new to catch consumers’ attention. It’s a subjective opinion, but it seems to me to have gotten worse over the years, and has led to not just problems with Apple products, but things like fire-starting Samsung phones.

[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by Antonmb

I’m with both of you. While my company was not making products as sophisticated as genetic diagnostic tests, we made ropes for applications like arborist climbing lines, tug boats, and mooring for LNGs and oil tankers. People get a little upset if a rope fails and they fall out of a tree, their tanker crashes into a dock, or they drop somebody they’re pulling off a cliff, so quality of both design and manufacture are critical, and design flaws unacceptable. I guess if your phone doesn’t work it’s not always as critical, but there certainly seem to have been a number of issues in the last few years. Having said that, I’ve purchased at least 8 iPads, 6 iPods, 6 iPhones, an iMac and a MacBook over the years and have never had a single hardware problem with any of them, which is more than I can say for PCs I’ve owned. Maybe I’ve just been lucky?

I suspect that part of the problem is the constant pressure in consumer electronics to be releasing something new and better every year. Disruptive innovations are few and far between, so companies feel the pressure to be constantly be doing something new to catch consumers’ attention. It’s a subjective opinion, but it seems to me to have gotten worse over the years, and has led to not just problems with Apple products, but things like fire-starting Samsung phones.

[jdandy]

Tony.......It's not like Apple hasn't had it's fair share of iPhone fires and personal injury with battery issues.

https://www.newsweek.com/iphone-batt...cuation-776529

[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by jdandy

Tony.......It's not like Apple hasn't had it's fair share of iPhone fires and personal injury with battery issues.

https://www.newsweek.com/iphone-batt...cuation-776529

Good point.

Suffice it to say, I won't go into the issues a friend of mine has had with both 2017 (which failed inside of 6 weeks after purchase) and 2018 Macbook Pros in the last year.

[NZ421291]

Up-dated to this yesterday- subjectively better screen resolution & app speed, but every time I get into my car, the Bluetooth menu wants me to enter my name & password- what a pain doing this every time you get into your car!

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by NZ421291

Up-dated to this yesterday- subjectively better screen resolution & app speed, but every time I get into my car, the Bluetooth menu wants me to enter my name & password- what a pain doing this every time you get into your car!

Never happened to me.