Hey,
So just a bit of a rant here... I'm not sure if any of you have experienced this but, when I report bugs to apple accessibility, such as the use of bluetooth speakers with IOS 14.5 and the weird fluctuation of volume, they replied by asking me to run diagonsistics on my phone and sending it in for them to check.
Now, this pisses me off. Partly because the instructions seem to be wrong, but that they expect me to spend half an hour doing their job for them. I'd understand if it was my specific use case, but this is an error on the part of the developers. It is an easily replicated issue. Why should I, after spending a grand on a phone, work for free in assisting them in their shitty product?
I have said as much to them. I'd understand if they were a small company but, well, they're not. I see it as a huge insult that they either don't believe the bug exists, that I've not explained it well enough or that, as a blind user of their products, I should go the extra mile to make it work for me.
Anyway, sorry, I just wanted to get that off my chest.
what do you think? Is it fair for such a rich company who charge premium prices to ask its minority users to run such diagnostics despite it being easy to reproduce?
I do realise the irony, saying my time is valuable and then spending ten minutes screaming into the virtual void, but that's my choice.
thoughts? Am I being a prick?
Comments
If you don't want to assist…
If you don't want to assist them, why report the bug in the first place? As you stated, it's a common bug, so if you don't want to help, why bother writing emails, spending time on forum posts and ranting? Getting and emailing the logs takes about 2 minutes, an average time on such post. Shure, I can click my fingers at a waitress to tell them to pick up my napkin, because dammit, this restaurant is so expensive and it's their fault it's windy on the deck. But it doesn't look very nice.
Poor comparison
Let's take your analogy of the restaurant. I go in and order a steak, medium rare. they bring it out, it's beyond well done. In my view saying, this is quite obviously wrong, and sending it back, should be all that is required. What I am being asked to do is to tell them how to cook a medium rare steak.
I'll report the bug, it's quick, takes little time. When I'm asked to trouble shoot their failures, that's when I feel it is too much and puts the expectation on us, their customers, to solve issues of their own making. Awareness of the issue should be enough.
It's the age old story of an expectation that because someone is willing to do a little, they'll do a lot, saving someone else the effort.
Thank you for your reply though. It really improved my mood.
Kind of....
I tried to report issues with IOS Pages, like not surching a full long document for misspelled words and not reading the longer documents to the end with the two-finger swipe down. The person I got a hold of in the accessibility kept demanding more and more details and screen recordings, until I made an error in describing one aspect of the issue in one of my emails. That mistake was then used to dismiss everything I had brought up, like a syntax error that shuts down the program. It was a complete waste of time. I stopped using Pages and also decided to stop reporting anything to Apple. It's just not worth the degrading experience.
I agree, but also disagree.
So, here's my take. I agree that we are being treated like idiots. Sending in diag logs, OK, that I totally 100 percent am all for when we send files to apple like that. What I am against however is us having to take screen recordings to show engineers what is happening. It's almost like they want the proof, as otherwise, if we can't proove it that way, then to them, it basically doesn't exist. Where I disagree is, people here saying I stopped reporting bugs, as it's just not worth our time. Frankly, if we flood them with bug reports, maybe that's what it'll take to get their attention. Normally, I'd be totally against that approach, but at this point, it looks like it's really about the last resort thing for us to do any longer now adays.
Agree, we should report bugs
I completely agree we should report bugs but it does feel, as you say, like it requires several examples of an issue before they sit up and take notice. It's almost as if they think we're stupid and can't use our devices and we therefore have to leap through hoops to prove the issue.
As another poster experienced, they basically gaslight us, and I'm sick of that. We already have to work harder to prove to the world that being blind doesn't equate to being a moron.
Anyway, there are examples when they have fixed things, but it's a support area that really needs some work.
I've replied to the latest request for further information with a request for payment or a discount on my next purchase. Incentivise bug chasing and we'll do it. At the moment our only incentive is that they might fix it at some point.
actually sendin in…
actually sendin in diagnostics is a good thing. It only takes about 5 minutes to do, just do it and quite complaining. i woudl ask if I even were big or small company. your rants to me are pointless and just make a lot of noise.
Thanks for taking the time…
Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to reply to this thread with your valuable point of view though I do wish you'd taken, let's say five minutes, to proof your post so that it was more intelligible.
Reproducibility
Behavior may not be as easy for others to reproduce as we think it is. No two people think the same. One person might provide what they believe to be a complete set of steps to reproduce the issue, and another person might misinterpret those steps, or the steps might be incomplete.
Agreed
Agreed, though the closed garden of apple should minimise this. Remember the days of troubleshooting windows machines with hardware from all sorts of manufacturers? If we are using very niche apps, or the devices in very specific ways, I understand, but when it is something so generic as a bluetooth connection to a speaker, there should be no doubt and no need for me, or anyone else to 'prove' that there is an issue.
If you file a bug report,…
If you file a bug report, you should expect to send in diagnostics in my opinion. It's common practice to ask for logs for devs, as configurations can differ greatly from device to device.
I don't understand why you complain about having to follow up on a bug report - would you rather Apple ignore you?
Malthe
Yes, I'd prefer them to not…
Yes, I'd prefer them to not respond... No wait... Oh you, you got me...
There are several issues here. Firstly, the bugs shouldn't exist on a public release though I do understand that some get through. The second point is there are bugs that sustain even when reported, finally, If we were any users aside from ones with accessibility needs, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
I just lack faith in apple fixing problems that are reported, even when I have done all their work for them in the past.
Anyway, some of you understand, some of you don't. That's not going to be changed here. I'm glad to read that some do agree. I expect a certain standard from a premium product and don't subscribe to buying the dog and barking myself. Some of you do, and that's cool, I've just got better things to do with my time, like listen to VoiceOver shouting at me whilst I try to listen to a bluetooth speaker.
Regarding your second point,…
Regarding your second point, I've had bugs in the past that recquired me to send in diagnostics that were non-accessibility related. It's common practice.
As a temporary fix to the bt speaker problem, turn off VoiceOver sounds btw. It doesn't resolve it completely, and I agree that it's super annoying, but it makes it usable without the shouting.
Malthe
Oh boy, do I have a story
Hello everyone.
Here's my story.
I bought a 15 inch Macbook Pro with touchbar when they first came out. It was my very first Apple computer since the late 70's when I owned an Apple 2e.
I was very happy with my brand new Macbook Pro . . . for around an hour. Then I started experiencing "busy, busy, busy" in text fields and word processors.
Of course, I called Apple. Lol! I thought what every consumer thinks. I'd explain the problem, mentioning repeatedly that I had just bought their newest laptop computer, that I had Apple Care Plus on it, and that I wanted to send it to them for them to fix, or to bring it to an authorized Apple repair center in my area.
What? Apple didn't want to do that? Nope.
First, they had me jump through a whole bunch of hoops. "Try this." "Oh, that didn't work? Well, try this other thing then." "That didn't work either? Oh, well let's see, I guess we need to try this instead."
Of course, when they said "we" will have to try whatever, they meant me, or they meant I'd give them control of my Macbook Pro, leaving me to sit there for however long while they did whatever they did by remote control. Boring!
I actually did end up taking it to my local Apple authorized repair center at Apple's instruction . . . twice. I also sent it to Apple on their instruction. Receiving it back from "repair", I was told once that they couldn't find a problem, that it didn't exist, and I was twice told the problem was fixed . . ..
You know what, though? There was most definitely a problem, and the problem wasn't fixed. Each time I took it home, set it up, turned it on, and within five minutes heard "busy, busy, busy."
By the way, when I say "busy, busy, busy", I'm talking two minutes minimum, sometimes much longer, never just a few seconds. I'm talking total unresponsive computer here.
Anyway, after over eleven months during which I made over 35 phone calls to Apple, spending well over 40 hours on the phone and many more off the phone trying to get the stupid thing to work, miraculously, the problem got fixed!
I fixed it.
I stumbled onto the issue by accident. I thought to myself, "huh, maybe it's this," and then I gimmicked with it.
Lo and behold! The keyboard replacement data b ase had to many entries in it, and the whole cm;puter was freezing up because of it.
Easy fix. Delete date base contents. Problem gone.
All this took over eleven months.
By the way, I went through over a dozen Apple people, or rather, they didn't want to deal with me and hung up, or said they needed to transfer me to a dead extension, or simply never returned my calls. One guy actually lied to me. I called him on it, which may be why others later didn't want to deal with me. Mind, I was always polite, but I was also assertive. I guess some folks don't care much for assertive.
Thing is, though, higher up their food chain, they really didn't want to mistreat me. All this happened before I retired. Back then, I was an attorney at law.
Joy!
Bruce
That was a quite a story, Bruce Harrell !
Hey. I will give commend to the Microsoft's service, they are really great! Thanks to the be my eyes, My problems will fixed. Though I understand where yawl coming from, But I did not have any kind of issue with apple. But I can definetlly say that apple can bee weird. I do not enjoy their accessibility service, because they do not have a video chat option. peace!
No one is complaining, Sarah.
Sarah, no one's complaining. Calm down for goodness sake! Take a chill pill! No one, not even myself said sending diags wasn't a good thing. You totally missed the context of what we're saying. Sending in diags, yes! You're right is a good thing. Please read through the thread again more closely. The last thing we're doing is ranting.
Fair enough.
You make a very valid point, and it's definitely taken with the correct intention.
Problem with Apple Mail App
Hi all, I agree with everyone was said here about job for Apple. I am doing now, I repported to Apple about read uncorrect messages number by Voice Over. I was sent a screen shot and screen recording that's prooth of it, and they said me to call my Apple provider in Is6ael, in Israel there are a support number for cusdemeres but they not know nothing about Accessibility of Apple products. I have tryed to explain them what i am expeirence with Voice Over regarding the bug I was menched here, but they not know what's Voice Over is and they told me that they not see more unread messages on my Mail Box. it's making me nuts, inouth, I fill I work on the'm. They don't pay me about this.
use outlook instead, it is…
use outlook instead, it is much better than apple mail. I uninstalled apple mail.