Another year, another new version of iOS (9.3 in this case) and another series of installation disasters. AS the fallout from another software update continues it appears that little if anything has been learnt from the iOS 8 debacle.
For those of us involved in software development, Apple’s hero approach to releasing new software has little to recommend it. There’s no shortage of empirical evidence to support the notion that combining operating system and application software (e.g. Safari) changes into one release is a high risk approach that is unlikely to end well. The least likely outcome from such an endeavour is that everything works as expected and everyone involved is seen as a hero.
A more realistic outcome (as can be seen from the releases of iOS 8 and iOS 9.3) is that things break in unforeseen ways due to use cases and scenarios that weren’t considered during the testing phase.
If Apple wants to regain the trust of its users it needs to take a leaf out of the Microsoft Windows 10 book and put a stop to these huge updates. Smaller releases will be better for its customers and better for Apple.