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I really wish Apple would allow non-WebKit browsers into the App Store. Chrome is much more stable, but since they must also use WebKit, it uses the same rendering technology as Safari. At best, you can use a cloud-based browser such as Photon. Make sure to enable the cloud session. This renders the website on an external server and your iOS device only gets a rendered image. It’s a little slow, but if you need to use a website that keeps crashing on Safari or any WebKit browser, it’s the best alternative.
Sharing a website using Safari or other browsers is also a bit defective. I usually have to press the Share button several times. Sharing a link via email will often crash the browser. This has been a problem since iOS 8, however, it seems to have been improved with iOS 8.4.1. iOS 9 seems to re-introduce these issues and iOS 9.1 doesn’t fix them.
After upgrading to iOS 9.1, I went to the App Store to update one app that I use often. I had pending updates for about 50 other apps, but I didn’t want to update them right away. I tapped the update button next to the app and carefully set my iPad down on a table. I verified that only one app was updating. I came back in a few minutes, and to my horror, every app was being updated. This is clearly a bug introduced when Apple fixed an issue with App Store updates in iOS 9.1.
It’s very frustrating when all of the apps are updating, especially when Apple’s servers are so slow immediately after new iOS updates are released. I tapped on all of the apps to stop them from updating, to no avail. They would stop for a moment and resume updating. Some apps ended up being stuck in limbo. I will need to delete them and re-install them. This bug rendered my iPad useless for two days. I had to shut it down to stop it from congesting my Internet connection.
The Mail app has also crashed on me a few times since upgrading to iOS 9.1. Mail is an essential utility, and for the first time I am considering using another email client. You don’t have to use Mail. You can use the Gmail app or mail clients from a variety of different providers.
After the iOS 9.0.2 update, Notes no longer syncs with my Mac. This is another app that I will stop using. I am considering moving to Evernote. The poor quality of Apple’s stock apps is nothing new. iTunes has been around for over a decade, and it seems to get worse and more convoluted with every release. As Apple gets larger and top engineering talent are lured to startups, they just don’t have the culture, environment or talent to make decent apps. I ditched Apple Music because it was just too buggy. Great app developers aren’t working at Apple. They can get paid more and are granted pre-IPO stock options at startups. Apple’s app developers are not the cream of the crop. (continue…)