So without quoting the source, I read yet another article Monday suggesting that Apple is doing too much too quickly and thus releasing products with a few too many defects. The most notorious example is iOS 8.0.1, withdrawn a little over an hour after being released. It seems that it caused havoc on an iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, notably the loss of your cellular connection and Touch ID.

Understandably, you had to wonder just how Apple managed to deliver an update that was so flawed. Didn’t anyone test the thing on the most important iPhones of the year, maybe the most important iPhones ever? How could that possibly be?

Well, Apple VP Greg Joswiak explained the cause, sort of, in an interview with Re/code a few weeks back. So “Joz” blamed the flawed update on the way it was “wrapped” before being sent over Apple’s servers. After rewrapping or doing whatever was necessary to fix the problem, an 8.0.2 update appeared the very next day. This time, the fixes worked. In the meantime, some 40,000 new iPhones were virtually bricked by the original update, but doing a Restore via iTunes would apparently set things right.

I would not presume to understand the full details of Apple’s distribution mechanism, and I expect much of the process may be proprietary. But did Apple do a pilot run first, to make sure the update worked? Just asking.

As you might expect, Apple got lots of nasty publicity as the result of 8.0.1, and some of it was typically exaggerated. At the same time, Microsoft has released more than its share of faulty updates, causing such symptoms is reboot loops or the inability to boot. It seems to be taken in stride because that’s Microsoft, and this is Apple. Apple is supposed to be perfect.

This isn’t to say there haven’t been ongoing glitches with iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite. There always seem to be Wi-Fi issues, and sometimes Bluetooth in the early part of a release cycle. Performance on older gear may not be up to snuff. But if you look at the history of iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, you’ll also find a number of early-release bugs. Don’t forget that Apple Mail’s handling of Gmail was seriously broken, and that required a separate Mail Updates for Mavericks to deal with some of the core issues.

How soon they forget!

But any defect that involves networking of one sort or another can be frustrating. While I’ve usually connected my desktop Macs via a wired connection, lately I’ve been experimenting with the 802.11ac hookup on the test iMac 5K. Since the current Wi-Fi standard is in the range of gigabit Ethernet in performance, I expected not to notice much of a difference going without the cable. I didn’t. And, by the way, I never did encounter that notorious Yosemite Wi-Fi bug, but I realize that it exists and has frustrated at least some of you.

In passing, Apple is reportedly working on a 10.10.2 update — available to developers and public beta testers — that targets Wi-Fi issues that remained after 10.10.1 arrived a few weeks back.

While I respect some of the people who complain about Apple’s recent quality control lapses, I can still point to serious problems with earlier OS releases, even before Apple committed to annual OS X revisions. I am not going to repeat the specifics here, but you can easily search this site or consult your favorite search engine for the specifics.

Once again, Apple has never been perfect.

Except that this year Apple chose to put a lot more new stuff into iOS and OS X, and something had to give. I hoped that the Yosemite public beta program would have resulted in a more solid release. I cannot imagine how persistent Wi-Fi connection problems wouldn’t be noticed, though I suppose it’s possible Apple knew some of you were affected, but needed more time to arrive at a fix. Assuming only a fraction of Mac users were impacted — and that it may not have been a consistent problem in all cases — perhaps Apple decided to take the calculated risk.

It happens all the time in this business.

The corollary argument is that maybe the bugs in iOS 8 have dulled the adoption rate. As I write this, Apple reports a 63% iOS adoption curve, with 33% still using iOS 7. Mixpanel Trends displays frequent updates and the figures I saw when I wrote this article reflected a 65.6% iOS 8 adoption rate, with 31.33% staying with iOS 7.

In the scheme of things, either figure is quite high, but the numbers for iOS 7 were roughly 10% higher at this point last year, depending on the source. That may seem significant, but remember Apple eliminated tens of millions of older iOS gear with iOS 8. So if you have an original iPad or anything up to an iPhone 4, forget about it. The minimum supported devices are the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4s, but expect degraded performance. The iOS 8.1.1 update supposedly made things a tad swifter, but the benchmarks show it’s hit or miss. Remember that even when an app launches only a fraction of a second slower, that may mean the difference between snappy and lagging.

All those old iPhones and iPads are still in service even though they are no longer eligible for the latest and greatest OS. That reduces the potential number of upgrades, so that 10% figure may not be so bad if you take a realistic view.

Now I predicted the adoption rate would approach 70% by the end of the year. It’s getting closer, but it appears as if I’ll be off the mark by a few points. However, the numbers are still quite high, so don’t let the fear mongers discourage you. It’s best to decide whether to upgrade to iOS 8 — or OS X Yosemite for that matter — on the basis of your needs and expectations.

As most of you know, I’ve pretty much settled on Apple Mail for my email needs since the early days of OS X. I’ve struggled with Microsoft Entourage and its successor, Outlook for Mac, but never seemed to find myself comfortable with the bloated interface and lagging performance. With the Outlook 365 beta released to Mac users a while back, they promised better performance. Maybe, but not enough to notice under most conditions.

From time to time, I’ve tried Thunderbird and other email clients, but they never seem to anticipate my simple needs better than Apple. You see I don’t want whiz-bang organizational capabilities. My organization is done with a set of rules on my email server, or via iCloud and Google. That’s more efficient then doing it directly from an app, because those settings would have to be repeated on every computer you own, and they aren’t available on an iOS device.

For me, I want email that fits into certain categories, such as payments or bills, to go into targeted folders. That way I can check them when new messages show up without having them join the clutter of regular messages. With Mail, I can also flag certain messages that I need to check from time to time, such as web server setup details or perhaps some suggestions from a support person about optimizing the server or fixing a recurrent problem. As you see, none of these needs are altogether difficult.

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One thing was part and parcel of the original Mac OS, and that was the promise of being able to discover many of the most important features by pointing and clicking. Features were mostly consistent among applications, so if you learned one, you knew most of the others. But of course things are never so simple in the real world, as I learned during my first extended encounters with Macs back in the 1980s.

I knew how to type pretty well, but mastering the mouse took a little while. I wouldn’t say how long, but one day I realized it had become second nature.

Still, over the years, there were exceptions, applications that had features deeply embedded in menus and submenus. I actually had to read some manuals from cover to cover, although that’s not something most of you do these days. Indeed, most of today’s manuals consist of some brief online instructions. For the rest, well, figure it out.

The arrival of the iPhone had an OS that made discovery of the new gadget’s features almost natural. You tapped, you swiped, you pinched, and after a while you had most of it figured out. Yes, different apps had different ways of doing things, but the basic skills enabled you to figure it all out in a short while. The Mac may have been advertised as “the Computer for the rest of us,” but the “rest of us” still didn’t mean everybody.

With the iPad, there was hope that it might become the personal computer of the future. Maybe it will some day, but right now it lies in the ephemeral universe between a smartphone and a Mac. It lacks the telephone features, except as a side effect of Apple’s Continuity, but otherwise it sports an interface scaled up and expanded from the iPhone. So it’s easy to switch back and forth without much difficulty. The Mac still lives in its own universe, but by giving OS X and iOS apps similar names and somewhat similar features, there’s less to adapt to.

Unfortunately, as OS and app features are piled on, something has to give. Interface designers need to work harder to make sure that the boatload of the new features doesn’t make things complicated. Google’s Android sometimes seems to do too many things in too many different ways, clear evidence that not a lot of thought goes into how they should be implemented. With Windows, it’s well known that a feature that requires half a dozen steps on a Mac may require far more when implemented under Microsoft’s OS.

This didn’t stop Microsoft from using the “discoverability” word in product updates. I saw it referenced on different versions of Office for Mac. In Office 2011, Microsoft expanded use of the ribbon toolbar with the goal of placing key features front and center with buttons rather than obscure menus. But toolbars are nothing new, and calling them ribbons doesn’t change the fact that Microsoft can overwhelm you with just too many awkwardly implemented.

Now you’d think Apple had interfaces all figured out, with few stumbles, and then came iTunes 12. Now iTunes is one of the most important Apple apps, and it resides on both Macs and Windows PCs. With the very newest version of iTunes, optimized for OS X Yosemite, the complaints have been fierce. While change is sometimes good, the changes in iTunes 12 can be mighty frustrating.

So the other day, one of our readers wondered why Apple killed the sidebar, a popular feature that helped you organize your playlists. Well, the sidebar is still there, but Apple, in its infinite wisdom, decided that it must be called a Playlist. Well, that’s the function, but still. Also, the commands in the center of the screen are context sensitive, depending on whether you’re viewing music, podcasts, movies, TV shows and apps. This may make sense from a logical point of view, but you still have to stop and read the changing labels to see what function you want, which can make it feel a little less smooth.

I suppose Apple is to be commended for wanting to try something new with an aging app whose feature set may just have become too large for convenience. It looks nice and all, but just trying to do things the same way as before doesn’t always succeed. I just wonder about the level of support calls Apple has fielded since iTunes 12 arrived. It definitely keeps Kirk McElhearn, Macworld’s “iTunes Guy,” very busy.;

At the same time, OS X Yosemite may sport loads of new features, and a new face, but most everything you do is accomplished in the same fashion as before. There’s not a lot of new stuff to learn, although you might have to spend a little time getting accustomed to Continuity and Handoff. Once set up, however, it’s really interesting to hear my iPhone ring, have it mirrored on an iPad, and presented with a different tone on an iMac. Or maybe just confusing you with the multiple warnings of an incoming call..

Now that Apple has made the major interface changes in the mobile and desktop operating systems, one hopes future versions with hone in on making them easier to use. If you will, discoverability.

On the surface, it must have seemed a sure thing. File a multimillion dollar antitrust lawsuit against an iconic tech company and maybe get a settlement that will enrich everyone, except for the aggrieved customers of course. At best, they can expect a discount coupon or a prepaid gift card for a small sum.

Well, that’s what usually happens. Certainly Apple has lost a few, won a few, and settled other claims over the years. On the surface, this particular case, involving Apple’s decision to make iTunes and iPods incompatible with rival music services and devices, could have cost up to one billion dollars if the plaintiff won.

What is striking about this case is the time it took to resolve. It was first filed in 2005, and covered some eight million customers who bought iPods while Apple’s FairPlay DRM was being used. Apple was accused of not just locking in customers to the iPod and overcharging for their devices.

Now DRM has always been controversial. To get the music companies to agree to supply music that included individual tracks for the original 99 cents price at iTunes, they had to be protected. That meant that you could share them with iPods and personal computers in your household, but not with anyone else. The original limit was three computers — and that included Windows PCs after Apple opened up iTunes — but was later raised to five.

If you had a big family with more than five computers, you were in trouble. In theory, you had to buy your music twice. Of course, nothing stopped you from ripping your own music from your CDs and vinyl collection, nor did it prevent you from adding unprotected tracks to iTunes. Of course some of those tracks may not have come from legal sources, but that didn’t matter.

Lest you forget, Microsoft had its own DRM scheme, PlaysForSure, which restricted content to licensed devices in a similar fashion due to the licensing agreement with the same music companies. In retrospect, you’d think Microsoft should have faced the same potential antitrust concerns as Apple for the same offenses (remember the Zune?), but there was one more issue.

You see, back in 2004, RealNetworks came up with a scheme known as Harmony that was designed to, in part, circumvent the restrictions on content in iTunes and the iPod. So you’d be able to download tunes purchased from the RealPlayer Music Store. In passing, some complained that RealNetworks was keeping its own intellectual property and products locked up while using workarounds to circumvent FairPlay.

In any case, new releases of iTunes blocked Harmony, but Apple claimed it was more about shoring up security and not locking out a competitor. Still, there was that contract with the music industry that could lead to serious consequences if an iPod was jailbroken.

Are you with me so far?

Now this lawsuit has had its ups and downs over the years. Testimony even became somewhat morbid by the inclusion of recorded testimony from Steve Jobs, which was taped about six months before his death in 2011.

Unlike the Apple/Samsung trial that may never end, the eight-member federal jury in U.S. District Court in California took about three hours to decide that Apple was innocent of any wrongdoing.

Apple’s response to the verdict, “We created iPod and iTunes to give our customers the world’s best way to listen to music. Every time we’ve updated those products — and every Apple product over the years — we’ve done it to make the user experience even better.” 

Curiously, RealNetworks wasn’t even part of the case. In a fascinating keystone cops routine, the case went through several plaintiffs as the lawyers attempted to find someone among those eight million who actually purchased one of the iPods that was impacted by this problem which, as you no doubt recall, was eliminated in 2009 by removing DRM for iTunes music.

Unfortunately, the first plaintiffs, when subjected to questioning by Apple, were shown not to have eligible gear. Don’t get me started, but you’d think lawyers setting up a billion dollar class action lawsuit would have the sense to make sure they had eligible plaintiffs. After a couple of potential plaintiffs were dismissed, they finally found someone to serve the role as an aggrieved party.

What made the situation altogether difficult is the fact that anyone who wanted a music player during that period could have bought someone else’s product. Sure, if it used a DRM licensed from Microsoft, or was otherwise under some sort of copying restriction, the end result would be essentially the same. Apple never forces anybody to buy their stuff; there are usually alternatives. So finding injury was exceedingly difficult. That the Harmony jailbreaking method was repeatedly blocked by Apple made sense from a legal standpoint. What if RealNetworks tried to do the same with Microsoft’s PlaysForSure? Wouldn’t Microsoft be justified in blocking it for the same reasons?

What’s more, despite this loss, it’s a sure thing that there are other ambitious ambulance chasers out there who’d be delighted to have a crack at Apple for one presumed transgression or another, and I haven’t begun to research pending cases. After all, the potential for a huge payday is still endlessly attractive.