What happened to this iOS?

• My phone has gone black and turned black three times today

This is a digital blogger complaining about his new phone on Weibo. In the past, if people were to guess which phone system he was complaining about, it would definitely be Android. After all, the Android system has been associated with lag and instability since its birth. But this time, the blogger was talking about the iPhone X, and the system is naturally iOS 11.

In fact, no other version of the system is like iOS 11, which has been greeted by various bugs since its birth and is also known as the "iBug" system.

The latest major bug outbreak occurred during the Spring Festival, when a Telugu (Telug, used in Dera in eastern India) symbol caused collective panic among iOS 11 users. It is the following:

This Telugu character bug has a huge impact on iOS devices: whether the user is sending, previewing, or even receiving a message with this character, the app being used on iOS 11 will immediately crash until the phone keeps shutting down and then becoming paralyzed.

If the user tries to restart the phone, the iPhone may enter a permanent restart state.

At the same time, due to code sharing, bugs including the Telugu characters mentioned above also affected macOS 10.13.4, watchOS 4.3 and tvOS 11.3.

In response to this bug, Apple quickly released the iOS 11.2.6 system update to remedy it. In the system update log, Apple was honest and directly stated that it had fixed an issue where using certain character sequences could cause apps to crash.

The problem is that iOS 11.2.6 is actually the eleventh update of this system in just a few months after its release.

But even after the eleventh update, problems still arise: iPhone 7/8/X and other phones have problems with AirPods pairing. Some users also reported that their AirPods sometimes output the same channel for both headphones, and the Double-tap setting function often has problems. The iOS 11.2.6 update notes mentioned that "fixes an issue where some third-party apps may not be able to connect to external accessories." Did you fix it?

Apple’s current pace of patching vulnerabilities is like playing whack-a-mole: when you press one here, another pops up over there.

There were too many fires to put out in time, and there were some issues in iOS 11 that were not as serious as the Telugu character issue, but were not properly addressed even with such a high frequency of system updates.

Last November, a low-level error occurred in the newly released iOS 11 system calculator app: the user entered 1+2+3 in the calculator and quickly clicked "equals", and the result was 24.

Later, a developer said that this was because Apple added an "orange to white" "fade in and out" animation effect in the iOS 11 calculator, which would hinder the device's recognition of the next input symbol. So when the user enters too quickly, although the screen shows "1+2+3", the system may have missed a "+", so the result is "24".

Soon, Apple announced that it had fixed the problem by temporarily "removing the animation effect". This problem was not solved until the iOS 11.3 beta system. From the updated beta system, the calculator has added the animation effect, and after entering "1+2+3", the result is finally "6".

Apple finally got the math right.

Oh, by the way, in this new version of the system, Apple will allow older iPhones to manually adjust whether to reduce the frequency of performance. Of course, I don't know if this counts as Apple reintroducing the "old devices run the new system too smoothly" bug in the new system?

Sometimes I doubt whether I am still using the iOS that is famous for its stability and smoothness.

At the end of last month, Apple announced the iOS system installation rate through App Store statistics. The data showed that since the official update of iOS 11 in September last year, the installation rate has reached 65%; 28% of users' systems remain on iOS 10, and 7% of users' systems remain before iOS 10.

One year ago, also five months after the new system was launched, the installation rate of iOS 10 reached 79%. The installation rate of iOS 10 reached 14.45% 24 hours after its release, and 34% in the first week. This series of data makes iOS 10 the fastest-updated system in Apple's iOS history.

It dropped from 79% to 65%. If we subtract the iPhone 8 series or iPhone X that already have iOS 11 pre-installed, the upgrade rate of old iOS 11 users may be even worse. What makes Apple even more embarrassed is that "Did Apple downgrade the system today?" has become a joke among iOS users. Not long ago, Apple quietly reopened the rollback verification channels for several old versions, and users were eager to tell each other.

Ultimately, it’s the short system update cycle. After a major system version is released, before the bugs are fixed, the development team will rush to develop the next new version - one year of updates has become Apple’s guarantee to the world.

Of course, in the eyes of some people, even if there are bugs, "it's not unusable." But a single character can paralyze the phone, and even if the character is not used, the user's phone often has a black screen or freezes. These situations are psychological torture for users. After all, no one wants to spend thousands of dollars to buy "insecurity."

iOS affects daily use, and macOS threatens data security, which is a good match.

Fortunately, Apple still has some ideas in mind. Next, Apple's software development pace will slow down, and it will focus on improving the system and improving the stability of software operation.

Thank god, don't make me use bugOS anymore.