Ask HN: Can an insider explain why Apple's networking/connectivity is so poor?

5 points by dplgk 9y ago ↗ HN

This isn't meant to be hyperbolic or a rant. I'm genuinely interested after several years of pain. There are blatant problems that exist with Apple networking/bluetooth/USB stack (see 10,000's of Apple forum posts) and the message we usually get from an app is "There was an error". Somebody on this earth knows why yet it's never been disclosed (or I cannot find it in the piles of "reset your NVRAM" posts on the internet).

The follow types of things fail with regularity:

- Awake from sleep and connect to previous wifi connection (also wifi stops working and has to be restarted)

- Backup iPhone to iCloud

- Sign into iCloud on macOS or iOS

- Sign into Message on macOS

- Sign into Facetime on macOS

- Make a Facetime call from macOS (why is call disabled?)

- Backup iPhone to macOS over wifi (never got it to work)

- Backup iPhone to macOS over USB (loves to fail during backup)

- Backups iPhone photos to Photos app (phone disconnects during backup)

etc

I'm amazed at the problems Apple seems to have writing stable code for a very limited set of hardware.

3 comments

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vargalas 9y ago ↗

Following. And I add two to the list: - Macbook's wifi connection is crazily unreliable. Based on Googling, it's also not unique. - Iphone cannot find mobile net after coming out of the basement until I turn the mobile net off and on again. Grrr.

blackflame7000 9y ago ↗

Wifi tends to be a fickle thing and I would wager a good percentage of the complaints are not specifically the Macbook's fault. Additionally the reason your Iphone cannot immediately find service is to reduce power consumption. When low/no cell service exists, cell phones broadcast on 100% power but reduce the frequency of pings in order to avoid depleting the battery desperately searching for a signal.

wskinner 9y ago ↗

Add to the list: AirDrop. Even with recent hardware on both sides, the success rate is so low that I pretty much never even try to use it anymore, preferring to use Dropbox when I own both devices.