apple-bugs.md

Apple’s bugs

I still enjoy using Apple products and prefer them over alternatives, but in recent years, an increasing number of small bugs has made using them less pleasant. No single bug is fatal, but they add up. I wanted to document them to make it more likely that they will be fixed.

There are two main topics:

• Many small unnecessary bugs
• Strategy tax

Small unnecessary bugs

iPadOS/iOS

• The settings of an app are separate from the app
• Copy/paste keeps formatting. There is no simple way to remove formatting
• Notes
  • During editing, links remain clickable, which makes editing the lines before and after really difficult.
  • Pasting:
    • Removes bullet point items
    • Inserts an extra newline
• Intrusive warning dialog when you are offline
• Safari:
  • Can’t move a tab to the very right via tab bar
  • Can’t arrange tabs chronologically (only by website and by title)
    • Thus: no way to undo if you sort accidentally
• Typing:
  • No simple built-in way to search for emoji (except via predictive text)
  • Moving the cursor via tap-holding the space bar: A single secondary tap can be used to select text, but the selection is only extended. Therefore, it’s easy to make mistakes that can’t be immediately undone.
• Mail:
  • The iPadOS/iOS way of doing trees doesn’t really work if there are many folders. Then navigation becomes painful.

iCloud

• Syncing is much slower than, e.g., Dropbox.
• Sometimes, syncing gets stuck
• You can’t access deleted files or older versions of files
• You can’t share folders via the web
• When you first switch iCloud Drive on, it’s possible that nothing happens (no progress indication etc.) until, after hours, the files finally appear.

MacOS

• Finder:
  • Illegal characters in filenames (mainly colon, which is a common and useful character): Why not escape them (under the hood)?
  • iCloud Drive has its own Downloads folder
  • Can’t turn any folder into an iCloud folder, they have to reside in $HOME/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/
• Mail:
  • Several useful characters (IIRC, colons and slashes) cause weird behavior, without any warning.
  • You can’t associate signatures with iCloud email aliases
• Desktops:
  • Restoring windows doesn’t work for most apps (not even for all of Apple’s apps)
  • You are transported to another desktop if you click on the icon of an app that is active but doesn’t have any open windows in the current desktop.
  • Hiding an app in one desktop hides it everywhere
  • Wish: being able to assign names to desktops
• QuickTime Player UI
  • Controls obscure the content
• Notes:
  • Copying the text of a bullet item always includes the bullet
• Apple TV app:
  • Difficult to get a list of TV episodes where you can see how far you have watched each episode
  • Different keyboard shortcuts than all other apps.
    • For example: escape quits the current video (vs. existing full screen elsewhere)
    • Shortcut for full screen is different (everywhere else: F)

Strategy tax

Strategy tax: Limiting one product in order to help another product.

• Siri Remote doesn’t work with a Mac, can’t use it like an Apple TV
  • Alas, Front Row was discontinued
• Macs have no alarm clock and timer
• iPad: no official keyboard with a trackpad (yet; I expect this to change eventually)
• iPad: no multi-user mode
• Not much is web-based (e.g. folder sharing), which makes sharing with other operating systems difficult. Apple simply assumes that everyone has Apple.

Other

• I wish Lightning were replaced with USB-C everywhere:
  • Having two standards is painful (adapters, cables, etc.)
  • I’d love to use the same wired USB-C headphones with Mac, iPad, iPhone
• I love the minimalism of the Siri Remote, but:
  • Its design is too symmetrical
  • It could use a few more keys

I add one more
It's a feature request, but a nasty one:
When iOS is less than 10% power, a popup comes up, which a user manually needs to click.
It should automatically disappear, when the power cable is plugged in and the iPad/iPhone is being served with power.

Are these "bugs" in the development sense? Or should you replace the word "bugs" with something more appropriate?

If you select something too quickly in an iOS "picker", it doesn't actually select the new thing but stays as it was. You have to wait for the complete animation to end before pressing "Done".