[teruakohatu]

> They have a stupid off-by-one bug in the middle of their bass enhancer AND NOBODY NOTICED NOR FIXED IT IN OVER A YEAR.

The mocking tone of this post is really not necessary. An engineer made probably one of the most common coding errors that nobody noticed because real world impact is minor to non existent. The devs should be trying to build a relationship with Apple, not mocking then each time they find a minor bug.

[agildehaus]

These devs didn't even notice it until they tried to rip into the inner workings.

[aaomidi]

> These devs didn't even notice it until they tried to rip into the inner workings.

I mean, considering the source isn't open. Yeah, you need to do that.

[Turing_Machine]

Well, for audio bugs that actually matter, you can just listen to it, or if you want to get all sciencey, throw the output and input onto a scope and compare them, or send the input and output sample values into the analysis software of your choice.

Code isn't necessary to judge the quality of an audio system. You can pretty much treat it as a black box if you want.

The fact that no one has apparently even noticed this bug before says a lot.

[MBCook]

He posted a video in the thread comparing an M1 machine (they don’t have the bug) with an M2. It’s rather obvious in that simple sine-wave test.

This isn’t one of those things like the difference between 128 Kbps MP3 and FLAC, where there is a difference but it can be kind of subtle depending on the listening equipment.

It’s clear in that demo.

[Turing_Machine]

That's as may be, but the person I was responding to was claiming that you needed the source code to detect it.

Clearly you don't.

[gjsman-1000]

The point is more that, yes, it’s technically incorrect. But if literally no human noticed or was affected in any way, who cares? That’s the only reason bugs matter anyway.

[hgomersall]

It's a bug that shouldn't have happened though. One hopes that they have a well verified reference implementation for all their signal processing pipeline (and ideally both a high level and a bit accurate model) and they're testing the output of any optimised implementation against that, with random input data. This is Apple, one of the most "valuable" companies in the world. They should do their job.

[gjsman-1000]

> They should do their job.

They did their job. They delivered a sound system that has been called the best available in any laptop. Nobody, and I mean nobody, noticed this bug in the last three years.

Apple is doing just fine without your couch coaching about what they should have done. I might as well harass Apple for having 99% P3 color certification but not 100% accuracy certification.

[sussmannbaka]

Nobody noticed the bug in the last three years because it’s more recent. You can hear it clearly in real world usage compared to the M1. Harassing Apple over 99% P3 certification is not remotely comparable because that’s neither perceivable, nor incorrect behavior. It’s clearly a bug, an egregious one at that and it will be fixed no matter what you think about Marcans choice of words.

[Clamchop]

This is an egregious deployment of the word "egregious". In a world where security catastrophes are de rigueur (all of them driven by oversights), this level of drama over an audio bug is so unjustified that it reads like trolling.

[hgomersall]

You're completely wrong. Signal processing is regularly used to make life and death decisions in medical technology, including audio techniques which are particularly useful in say, heart beat analysis. Your perspective appears rather narrow. In any case, I said egregious "signal processing cock up", which from a purely signal processing perspective, it absolutely is (as in, it has a big impact).

It might well be the case that a bug in a bass audio driver is not that big a deal, but these sorts of bugs are easy to avoid and shouldn't happen. It does indicate something about the quality of the engineering.

[hgomersall]

I'm sorry, dropping samples is a pretty egregious signal processing cock up and one I'd be ashamed to have made. I think the market assessment is pretty meaningless in the face of objective evidence like this. By all means, you can keep buying Apple, but I'd have no trust they're doing things properly under the hood.

[gjsman-1000]

Well then I sure hate to tell you the major “cock ups” that have happened on Windows or Android or Linux or iOS or OS/2 or BSD…

But seriously, shit happens no matter where you look. At least this bug affected nobody. Windows has a bug that causes agony on a weekly basis.

[supriyo-biswas]

Unfortunately, it appears that the Asahi Linux team carries this holier-than-thou attitude everywhere. Their GPU driver reversing had similar snipes at Apple; and we also have the whole HN/asahilinux.org referrer debacle.

[MBCook]

> Their GPU driver reversing had similar snipes at Apple; and we also have the whole HN/asahilinux.org referrer debacle.

Yeah I didn’t like the way the GPU stuff was presented. It was purposefully antagonistic despite absolutely no need for it.

That said, they’re 100% right on the HN issue. That’s not them overreacting or being mean. That’s avoiding abuse that HN refuses to do anything about.

[supriyo-biswas]

It has been my experience that dang doesn’t respond to feedback emails of the kind Hector claims to have sent (and I’ve sent a few of them); and I kinda see why: because any disagreement on said feedback leads to more arguments, which is terribly draining for the recipient.

That being said, if the feedback provided had the same quality as the post linked above, one can justifiably see why not engaging with it at all is the best option.