Think iOS is buggy? You're not alone, and the bugs are now so commonplace that Apple didn't even spot the cameo appearance of one in its latest ad for the iPhone X.
Must read: Meltdown and Spectre -- Is your PC vulnerable?[1]
The bug, which was spotted by the eagle-eyes of Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac[2], involves the text of an iMessage briefly appearing outside of the notification bubble on the lock screen.
What's doubly embarrassing for Apple is that Mayo says that he reported this bug "months ago" and Apple closed the bug report.
Here's the ad (the bug is briefly visible at the 50 seconds mark):
Here's a closeup of the bug in action:
iOS 11 bug
Now, I'll be the first to admit that this is a small thing. Compared to some of the bugs that iOS has suffered as of late[3] (and for that matter, some of the bugs it still has), this is nothing. But it's significant for a number of reasons:
- First, it made it into an Apple ad
- No one noticed the bug (or, alternatively, cared that it was visible)
- It's been reported for months and not fixed
A report earlier this year[4] claimed that Apple was postponing some of the major features it had planned for iOS 12 in order to concentrate on fixing bugs in the code. That might be for the best, but it's an indictment of Apple that it let things get into such a mess in the first place.
Just over the last few weeks of the year, we saw both macOS and iOS hit by several