“Quality is inversely proportional to complexity multiplied by time.”

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As Complexity increases, Quality decreases.

As time moves forward quality still decreases even if complexity remains the same.

First postulated in 1997, I’m sad to say that nothing has changed.

For computers, year after year, the hardware and software gets more complex and this multiplication results in the abysmal, and rapidly declining, quality we’re experiencing in the computing industry.

Perhaps it’s due to the fast computers and lots of memory and disk space that breeds carelessness, but for whatever reason, the quality of some programs written by some of the world’s largest (not finest) companies is just awful. These same companies also charge for upgrades that contain more useless and buggy features. We upgrade on the hope that the old version’s bugs are fixed in the new version. They often aren’t, or they’re broken in different ways.

Of course, it’s not just large, monolithic corporations that tolerate lousy programming. It’s endemic in the industry. Too much pressure to ship, ship lots of features, and let the customers do your testing.

When you see great programs these days, you know that the programmers are truly superstars in their field because they’re so uncommon.

When I was programming, I took it as a personal failure if someone reported a bug in my code. Now, too many programmers just shrug their shoulders and give you the “whatever” look. Bugs are expected; what’s the big deal, right? Wrong. I don’t expect perfection, I expect ownership.

So how does this apply to Apple, you ask? How much time have you got?

My daughter made a stuffed skunk for me one Christmas several years ago as she thought it would be funny to keep it under my monitor to remind me of how stinky computers were. I use Apple computers.

The skunk remained under my Dell monitor for years (it’s a Dell because your monitors were, and are, overpriced). In a recent cleaning binge, I consolidated my stuffed stuff to sit above my HP printer.

I was musing about all the articles being written about your iPhone App Store for the bonehead decisions and your defensive reply (a miracle that you did officially reply and from Phil Schiller no less). I recently read Jason Calacanis’ “The Case Against Apple” and the immediate response from the Apple pundits saying his facts and logic were wrong and his article was “pathetic and reality deprived“. The irony being that Calacanis described himself as having a love affair with Apple. And we see an earlier Twitter message from one of his detractors calling out Apple on yet another App Store blunder.

So, yeah, it’s kind of a love-hate relationship between you and your customers. As I was trying to decide how I felt about all the negativity descending upon you, I realized I was staring at my stuffed stuff and something clicked.

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I’m only partly kidding when I say that this Dilbert cartoon perfectly captures my experiences with many of your products lately. I don’t think I can wait for Snow Leopard and will soon be required to do an archive and install on my MacBook in the faint hope it will cure the OS X problems.

I’ll still be left with all the problems with iTunes, Shuffle, and Apple TV of note.

Update 2009-07-04: I completed the A&I last night and have noticed various problems this morning including the return of problems I had earlier. My conclusion is that these are endemic bugs in Leopard that I can only hope will be cured by Snow Leopard. If not, well, why not?

OK, I admit, I nag you Apple folks a lot. I’m just interested in you improving your products so they’re not so flaky and inconsistent.

Lately, I’ve been having problems with almost everything Apple-related that I touch. I’m sorry if I seem abrupt and short-tempered at times. It’s the constant problems and surprises that are like Chinese water torture.

This brings to mind an article I saw in the University of Alberta student newspaper from the mid-’70’s, author unknown, that I found particularly funny. My tolerance is being severely tested so I’m sure glad I don’t have an Old Betsey, or I’d have no more Apple products in recognizable shapes — or a house for that matter.

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Most of my small nags are on Twitter now. I only put larger articles on the blog because they require more work.

Since the Twitter updates are as important as the blog postings, I’ve moved up the Twitter widget in the side-bar to just below the logo. You can read a few of the most recent postings there.

The sum of Twitter and this blog indicates how much trouble just one person has with your venerable and exalted Mac OS X Leopard. To say I am looking forward to countless bug fixes and consistency work in Snow Leopard would be an understatement.

I use this blog to point out that the shine on the Apple is starting to fade. Tarnish is showing in many places. Why do I do this? Because I’m a heavy user of your products, and have been since my first Macintosh 128K I bought on March 1, 1984. I would really like to see a higher quality standard than what I’ve been seeing lately. Entropy is really setting in with your products. I know you can do better.

Countless times you guys screw up and fail to admit your mistakes. It can take weeks, months, and even years before enough irate customers force you to offer extended warranties (although you sometimes keep them hidden). Sometimes we just have to live with the pain. I’m not going to go through the litany of problems here. It would take too long. Readers can just browse your support forums to get a taste.

No company creating such complex products can be expected to be perfect. Sometimes perfection is a matter of opinion. All I expect of any company is that they admit they made a mistake, take ownership for it, correct it at their expense, and have the decency to offer an apology.

Is that too much to ask? Apparently it’s not enough for some folks.
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I think this cartoon from Everyday People by Cathy Thorne pretty much sums up my attitude when dealing with Apple. Follow Cathy on Twitter @cathythorne or her Facebook fan page.

It’s been a few days since I was last motivated to nag you about the latest flaw in your various products. Oh, I’m still experiencing things I’ve previously blogged about, including some new minor things like my iPod Touch failing to connect and sync this morning. That’s the first time it did that so it wasn’t worthy of a separate post.

I’m just wondering if I’ve reached the state of saturation that I don’t even see the problems anymore, or I’m getting senile.

But, I was wondering about something. Remember that whole digital hub thing Steve was talking about — how many MacWorld keynotes ago? When do you think you’ll get around to implementing it? Now that’s worthy of a special post.

On episode 188 of This Week in Tech (TWiT), Leo Laporte uttered the most universal tech line I’ve ever heard. At 1:31:52 Leo says, “There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just a piece of crap.”

That can apply to so many products made these days.

He was referring to the Android G1 phone. But I immediately started thinking about many Apple hardware and software products.

There’s nothing wrong with the stuff you make, that’s why we continue to use it. But it really is a piece of crap, meaning we think you can do a lot better.

Thanks, Leo. You made my day.

You guys get a lot of flack for your proprietary interfaces, adding chips here and there to extract licensing fees from accessory makers. Oh well, I’m just glad Apple doesn’t make cars.

If anybody knows who owns the copyright on this beauty, please let me know.