[Daegalus]

Because software is buggy, even Apples. It's not like you are updating hardware (like your other examples) you are doing a software update so that the software interfaces with the hardware better or fixes bugs.

nowadays your TV if it's a smart tv also gets monthly or quarterly updates too. they just tend to happen in off-peak hours. and car software updates are when you take them in for service.

you aren't doing a fair comparison asking why your X hardware doesn't need updates when comparing mostly hardware with simple software and full operating systems.

[throwaway20371]

How is it not a fair comparison? They're machines. Just because we are currently building them in a way that is incredibly fragile and needs constant fixes, does not mean they have to be built that way.

Cars used to be built by hand, had tons of bugs, and were expensive. Then a man came along and found a way to produce them faster, cheaper, and with less bugs. That was pretty amazing for a time, but they still had plenty of bugs. And then some people from a culture of very fastidious craftsmen obsessed with quality began producing cars a little cheaper, and with far fewer bugs, and they lasted much longer. Then the whole world realized, "shit, our machines don't actually need to be so fragile," and they followed suit.

The lessons learned by those people in that culture were promoted around the world, and evolved to shape what we now call Lean and Agile. But the people using these new processes forgot the first lesson: we don't have to accept the status quo.

[mickotron]

Where there is software, there are bugs.

It's not defeatist, it's reality.

You can test, but testing does not prove an absence of bugs. It just means your tests did not reveal any. Maybe your testing is flawed, incomplete, inappropriate, biased etc.

Just saying for devs to "not write bugs" is pretty naive. Almost like saying "don't have car accidents". We don't want to have them, yet here we are. In complex environments, things happens that are sometimes outside our immediate control.

[throwaway20371]

So then shouldn't we stop writing software? If it's really impossible to make software that doesn't have tons of bugs, yet it's perfectly possible to make hardware without those bugs, shouldn't we be "making hardware" instead?

Actually, now that I think of it, that's not the problem. The problem is we keep changing the software. My laptop from 15 years ago still functions exactly the same way it used to. It hasn't disintegrated into a puddle of bits. You just can't use it to visit any "modern website" or run any "modern software". If we just stopped upgrading everything every 5 seconds we could keep using old technology.

[mickotron]

Nice straw man.

[smoldesu]

Macs are neither cheaper nor less buggy, so I think I have to agree with the other guy. You're comparing Apples to oranges.