2011-12-23

Has Apple quality started to slide?

Over the past month I've noticed a lot more trouble with my OS X machines; networking (especially Airport) being much more reluctant to connect even to perfectly good networks, and several cases where my laptops just won't wake up after being opened. Safari (5.1.2) is also troublesome with various UI glitches and, if open for long enough, it refuses to load any new pages: a close and re-open is required. Notable that Firefox on the same machines doesn't have the same difficulties.

I've seen something analogous at Apple stores during 2011: the "can't do enough for you" attitude can still be found sometimes, but other times it feels like you're just intruding on the employees' time. Perhaps these are the slackers attracted to a successful company like ants to honey.

With Jobs' passing, has the quality mania at Apple started to disappear and be replaced by "just good enough to ship"? Are they going to do a Microsoft? Enquiring minds want to know.

Update: Just after I posted that, my Wifi icon started strobing as if it were trying to find a network, despite being very clearly connected to and posting through a perfectly good one. WTF?

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