Why has iOS 8 become Apple's most vulnerable system?

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When the iPhone 6 was first released, the industry was stunned by the numerous bugs in iOS 8 that were not fixed by updates. Given that almost all review agencies have joined in the review of the new iPhone, a relatively convincing overall evaluation of the new system has been formed. Considering Apple's long-standing image, the frequent need to restart during the use of the iPhone and the occasional failure of the keyboard are somewhat surprising.

Many commentators have described iOS 8 as Apple's most buggy operating system. Long before the iPhone faced the infinite restart problem, Apple expert John Gruber wrote that "Apple's software team and hardware team are not in step with each other."

Who first discovered these bugs? According to data from Crittercism, an application performance monitoring platform, in the first month after the launch of a new phone, the failure rate of iOS 8 was 60% higher than that of iOS 7.

"iOS, which has always been known for its overall quality and high standards, surprisingly has some obvious problems in recent reviews," said Daniel Jalkut, a former Apple software engineer. Jalkut analyzed his views on the reasons for the frequent problems in the iOS system:

"Bad things like HealthKit ruined the debut of iOS 8.0, and 8.0.1 was clearly due to Apple not finding bugs in time that could have been fixed before release. In addition, as the deadline for releasing new versions approaches, it becomes increasingly difficult for big issues to be addressed by the right Apple product managers. Bugs in Apple's mobile phone systems are also being pushed to the next version or even later."

The above problems are faced by every software release, but the problem with iOS 8 is that its problems are more severe than any previous iOS version.

iOS 8 is the real king of bugs

In fact, it is difficult to quantify the total number of bugs that a particular iPhone has faced. If you look through the posts on the forum, you can see the phone system failures that iOS users have experienced in the past. Some of these bugs affect thousands of users, while some of them are only reported by a dozen users, such as the widely publicized "bend gate" not long ago, which actually only affected a very small number of users.

"Users expect perfection, and if the product doesn't deliver, they'll tell everyone," said Matt Johnston, chief strategy officer at Applause, an app testing and analytics company. Due to the popularity of social networks, everyone has a megaphone in their hands. "Even the best software companies will be questioned and dissatisfied by users if they don't do their job well."

Log in to Apple's official website, and you will see a list of updates and bug fixes for each version of iOS (for example, iOS 8.0.2 or iOS 6.0.1). Obviously, the indicators being counted are bug fixes and improvements (rather than adding new features). Compared to the situation when it was first released, iOS 8 is indeed a new version different from the past.

iOS 6 had the same number of bugs as iOS 8 when it was released: 8 issues were fixed in version 6.0.1, and another bug was fixed in version 6.0.2. When iOS 7 was first released, the bug problem was much better than the former. But in the 7.0.3 version updated at the end of October 2013, 8 to 9 bugs were fixed at once. In total, iOS 6 fixed 21 bugs, while iOS 7 fixed 27.

In chronological order, the speed of system version updates is getting faster and faster. Through the iOS update schedule, it seems that some rules and trends can be summarized: the speed of the first update version of the system is getting faster and faster. For example, the first update of iOS 5 was about a month after the system was launched, while iOS 6 was half a month; iOS 7 was launched on September 18, and four update versions had been launched by mid-November. As the updates are launched, more and more problems are emerging.

Let's take a look at the one and a half months after the launch of iOS 8: Apple launched four updated versions, namely 8.0.1, 8.0.2, 8.1 and 8.1.1, and iOS 8 had a total of 23 bugs. In iOS 8.1.1, which was launched last Monday, Apple did not point out specific bug fixes, but generally introduced it as "This version fixes bugs and increases the stability of the system when it is applicable to iPad 2 and iPhone 4s." Assuming that these are not major vulnerabilities, even if there are only two or three patches plus fixes for older devices, the total number can be expanded to five. In summary, calling iOS 8 "the iOS system with the most bugs in history" is well deserved.

Increased pressure on software and hardware

A description that only stops at the digital stage is incomplete.

As the number of bugs continues to rise, iOS has become the most complex and technologically advanced system update yet, and Apple is also expanding its hardware product line. Instead of just one iPhone at a time, Apple is currently selling four different iPhone models and supporting six iPhone models, selling five iPad models and supporting eight iPad models, and selling the fifth generation iPod touch. It can't be ignored that both the iPhone and iPad are facing hundreds of different carriers around the world, which is one of the reasons why iOS 8 has so many bugs compared to previous generations of systems.

Other reasons still exist. Since the launch of the fourth-generation iPad and iPad mini, Apple has put the launch of the iPad series after the launch of the iPhone. Looking at the past few years, we can see that the significance of this change is that the bug generation rate of the iOS system is very fast when it is first launched. And through version updates, the system can better support new hardware devices.

The other side of the truth may be that Apple is just fixing more bugs than before. Apple should be thankful that it no longer encounters difficulties like antenna gate. On Apple's official support page, it is not clear how many people are affected by the bug.

With increasingly complex operating systems and product lines, choosing to launch products at the same time every year is not conducive to solving bugs that emerge at the same time.

Don't dare to slow down?

The close proximity of iOS and iPhone releases may have been good for Apple in terms of user adoption and sales, but it also led to developers and testers focusing on just making sure everything “just works,” Johnston said.

Some people believe that if Apple slows down the production cycle of its products and separates the launch time of the operating system and major hardware products, it will effectively reduce the occurrence of bugs. However, in the current fast-paced mobile device market, this will inevitably affect Apple's market competitiveness.

"I think the challenge for Apple is trying to strike a balance between trying to achieve a high level of quality and facing the fact that competitors are catching up with the pace of updates in operating systems and devices. This also threatens Apple's relatively strong position," said Jalkut.

Slowing down product cycles would also hurt Apple's perceived role as an innovation leader, and given that and the need to try to please investors, it seems unlikely that Apple would do so.

In a production cycle, Apple has to solve known bugs and continuously launch new updated versions. At least from the comparison at the beginning of the launch of the new system, we have found more and more bugs in this process. As our expectations for the system are getting higher and higher, the richness and complexity of iOS are also growing at an exponential rate, forming a new look, which also means that Apple will face difficult challenges. Perhaps in the future iOS 9, Apple will face more bugs. As for the bugs encountered in iOS 8, what we have seen so far may be only a small part of the process in the next year.