[readymade]

I do think, as one of the commenters on the original thread suggests, that some of the blame lies with the often latent relationship audio software companies have with Apple's release cycle. Ideally QA begins while the OS update is still in beta. This varies quite a bit from company to company, but it's not something to sweep under the rug. The news of audio drop out issues (poison to live performers) persisting through multiple major versions is horrifying though.

[wwweston]

> Ideally QA begins while the OS update is still in beta.

Would help a lot if (a) Apple had longer lead times to actually get things right internally before they went to beta and (b) beta cycles were a bit longer and (c) companies didn't have to do this every damn year.

On the other side... what are the benefits of having yearly regimented releases again?

[eridius]

> what are the benefits of having yearly regimented releases again?

It's what consumers expect. If Apple ditched the yearly upgrade model there'd probably be a shitstorm of bad PR and people complaining about how it's not just their hardware offerings that are getting out of date, now the OS is too.