A lot has happened over the last few weeks. Tom Warren sums it up pretty well:
“Hacking” with a blank root password — never should’ve happened in the first place, but yes, they patched it in one day (good), creating another problem with file sharing (bad again). And the new update (10.13.1 ➡️ source) brings back the root issue (very bad).
iOS 11.2 on the other hand fixes the date bug (iOS 11.1.2 appeared to continually crash or respring when time-based local notifications are received after 12:15 a.m. on December 2nd ➡️ source), and that’s why it probably went out on saturday, one day after pushing it to developers as a Golden Master. One day?
Oh, and the whole “passcode is your only key to everything Apple” case? It’s absolutely terrifying. We trusted you guys. We adapted to various obstacles because we knew they’re good for us. For the sake of security. And now if we ever commute in a public transport, put in our passcode in the public (much more common thing than you think unfortunately) — someone sees it, steals our device, and we’re done.
We all remember one of the updates that competely turned off calling on your phone whatsoever (fixed quite quickly), but that wasn’t followed by other fail-dominoes. I’m feeling like this time it’s different. It’s too much to ignore.
Look, I’m not a developer, but I understand the struggle. You’re announcing new stuff every year, which needs new software (like TrueDepth camera — new phone screen sizes, Le Notch, TouchBar, etc.). But on the other hand you still have the same amount of time to write software for all these new things. Is your software team big enough? Maybe it’s too big?
Or maybe things are going too fast?
I truly believe that it’s better to wait a little longer for things, whether it’s a new software update or new hardware (you‘re doing it with *new* Mac Pro apparently [🕯]). I’m patient. And others can be patient too, if they feel like it’s worth the wait.
Ofcourse we have to consider quick updates for the things that are absolutely essential in terms of security, but hey — maybe they wouldn’t be necessary if you took your time to test. Postpone big updates if you feel they’re not ready.
Cook’em good. We’ll wait.
