Defects I have found in macOS
Updated as of April 28, 2023. I’ve been testing macOS for years. Here are the 41 defects I found in macOS 13.3.1.
Note. This article was originally written July 26, 2021. Back then I had found 36 defects. I occasionally update this page. As of this writing the number of defects has grown to 41.
INTRODUCTION
In Defects I have found in iOS and iPadOS, I share more than a hundred defects I’ve found. Compared with that, I find macOS to be nearly feature-complete. And much less buggy.
However, it is not yet perfect. There are defects.
Worse, old defects are almost never being fixed. Meanwhile, new defects are being added with every new version.
For example, within a few weeks of using macOS 11 Big Sur, I was confronted with 20 new defects.
So the trend is bad. The number of defects is rapidly increasing each year. And the number of fixes each year is trivial.
Apple use to produce the best software in the world. It “just worked.”
But I’ve observed a decade of decline. Apple software is no longer the best. Apple seems quite comfortable with mediocrity.
Michael J. Tsai put it this way:
The general pattern is that each year more stuff breaks, and most of it is never fixed.
That pattern is called Technical Debt.
Here are the specific defects I’m aware of in macOS:
CONTENTS
SYSTEM SETTINGS
This app was rewritten for macOS 13. I consider it the worst app on macOS. It exemplifies unbelievable carelessness.
It does not even conform to Apple’s own Human Interface Guidelines.
Defect 1
The font size is microscopic. It cannot be increased.
This is an Accessibility problem. For people with poor eyesight, the font in the System Settings app is too tiny to be legible.
Defects 2 to 10
There are many more defects in the System Settings app. They have already been lamented quite extensively in the tech press.
For that reason, I am not investing the time to list them here.
Safari Browser
- I can increase the font size in Safari. However, that setting does not impact ALL font sizes in Safari. There are several locations where Safari neglects the font size selection entirely. This is an Accessibility problem. For people with poor eyesight, the font in those locations is too tiny to be legible.
- You can set Safari to display the entire URL. However, the URL field is actually too narrow to display the full URL. In most browsers the URL spans most of the width of the browser window. But in Safari it is punishingly narrow.
- Safari added website previews for tabs. If you hover over a tab, a preview of the website will appear. I find this gross and distracting. But there is no apparent way to turn it off.
-
In the address bar, every time I land on a new page, the URL is temporarily replaced by an unwanted message which says
Reader Available. For my work, when I land on a new page, my first goal, and often my only goal, is to verify the URL. ThisReader Availablemessage significantly disrupts my workflow and is quite frustrating. There is no way to deactivate it. For more see this discussion in the Apple Community.
FINDER
Defect 1
Upon rebooting my Mac, the finder forgets the default columns, as well as their widths.
The Finder needs a way to set the default columns, as well as their widths.
Defect 2
Upon saving a file, sometimes a duplicate of the file appears momentarily.
After five to ten seconds, it goes away.
How can Finder be so inept at saving a file?
Defect 3
In macOS 11 Big Sur, in iCloud Drive, some files never sync. An icon is always displayed in Finder which means files are not yet sync’d. I don’t know if the files are not sync’d, or if Finder has a bug.
In either case, it is not acceptable. Some files have not yet sync’d after many months.
Update. This is still the case, two years later, in macOS version 13.3.1.
PREVIEW APP
Update. Previously I had identified four defects in the Preview App. That was in macOS 11.
Now in macOS version 13.3.1, those defects are fixed.
MAIL APP
Defect 1
When pasting in a link, it is automatically converted into a link preview.
This is unacceptable for my work.
MESSAGES APP
Defect 1
When a new message arrives, after I read it on one device, all my other devices keep sounding their alert of a new message.
This problem has been around for many years.
Signing out of iCloud, and then back in, does NOT fix the situation.
ACCESSIBILITY
Defect 1
On iOS and iPadOS, you can adjust the “systemwide” font size.
But on macOS, you cannot. There is no way to increase all font sizes system-wide.
You might imagine you can go into a specific app and adjust the font size within it. However, very few apps by Apple allow for this.
CALENDAR APP
Defect 1
When I copy-paste a previous event, the pasted item is sometimes in the wrong calendar.
Defect 2
If I begin to type an event that repeats a previous event, the auto-complete almost always duplicates the wrong previous instance.
I’ve had to manually correct that hundreds and hundreds of times, despite the claimed advantages of Machine Learning and AI.
PHOTOS APP
For many years my experience of the Photos app was salted with constant sync problems. It was a never-ending source of aggravation.
Gradually I moved my workflow to apps by others.
At the moment, I am not aware of any defects in the Photos app. However, that is because it has been so bad for so long that I do not use it.
APP STORE APP
Defect 1
There is no “pull-to-refresh” capability. Thus we must trust the mechanism to be accurate.
However, Apple doesn’t get that right, even on iOS. And iOS is a platform they actually care about.
OPERATING SYSTEM
Defect 1
Tethering to my iPhone has always been quite failure-prone.
In macOS 11 Big Sur, it is far worse. My Mac often cannot find my iPhone, even though they are always in the same room.
I’ve tried turning Wi-Fi off and then on, on both the iPhone and the Mac. And I’ve tried a hard reset of the Mac and iPhone.
But it is terribly unreliable. This is a disaster for me, since I often work from tethering.
Defect 2
When in range of several Wi-Fi networks, all of which I have used before, it almost always auto-selects the network with the worst signal strength.
Defect 3
After taking a screenshot, there is a delay of roughly ten-seconds where the image merely hovers.
The delay adds no value and is a waste of time.
On some workdays, I might take 50 to 100 screenshots a day.
So on those days, this meaningless visual effect wastes 90 minutes of my life.
Defect 4
On reboot, a popup window claims Dropbox requires my Administrator password to work properly.
However, Dropbox does NOT require that password to work properly.
Worse, if I enter the password, Dropbox gets adminstrator access to my entire Mac.
This bug has been around for years and Apple has never fixed it.
Defect 5
On reboot, the keyboard is not lit up.
If I’m in a dark room, that makes it very difficult to log in to the Mac.
Defect 6
With the macOS 11 Big Sur upgrade, all my notification settings were overwritten.
I had turned off nearly every notification. But macOS 11 Big Sur turned them back on again. And turned on every possible variation of ON.
This is deeply disrespectful of people’s boundaries. And forcing people to reset the dozens of settings is terribly disrespectful of their time.
Defect 7
Sometimes macOS displays a small popup window before doing an action.
In macOS 11 Big Sur, the font size of the text has been made drastically smaller.
For me it is completely illegible.
This is an accessibility obstacle. And it disrespects font size selections everywhere else.
NUMBERS APP
Defect 1
It cannot rotate text in a cell.
Defect 2
File size needs to be commensurate with Microsoft Word or Google Docs, instead of roughly 10X bigger.
Defect 3
Selecting the colors of different cells is deeply inefficient. It squanders time and effort.
That is because the color selection popup stops working after one single use, even though it remains visible.
It has to be closed and re-initiated every single time.
The result is four to five times more clicks than in Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel.
Defect 4
Improved importing feature.
Currently, the file size of the resulting Numbers document is typically 20X bigger than the Microsoft Excel source document.
Defect 5
Improved copying of the file. Each successive copy increases the file size by 10 to 20%.
PAGES APP
Defect 1
File size needs to be commensurate with Microsoft Word or Google Docs, instead of roughly 10X bigger.
Defect 2
Improved importing feature.
Currently, the file size of the resulting Pages document is typically 20X bigger than the Microsoft Word source document.
Defect 3
Improved copying of an existing file. Each successive copy increases the file size by 10 to 20%.
KEYNOTE APP
Defect 1
File size needs to be commensurate with Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides, instead of roughly 10X bigger.
Defect 2
When saving a new document, the “Save File” mechanism ALWAYS defaults to one particular location. There is no way to default to a different location.
That is unlike Pages and Numbers.
REMINDERS APP
Defect 1
The font size is quite small. There is no way to increase it.
This is an Accessibility problem.
Originally published on July 26, 2021
Last updated on May 10, 2025
TOPICS: Apple, Browsers, Mac,