what happened to Apple's relentless pursuit of quality before introducing something to the public?
I has never existed.
The secret is to not focus on versions. In time the quirks will get sorted out and if your users don't know when or at what version it became better they will assume that it has always been working well.
First OS X? Terrible, barely usable even if there had been any applications for it. Current OS X? Decent. But since they have the same name it has always been decent because people can't even distinguish between them. At best they know the code name for the up and coming version or the previous one but definitely no more than that.
Remember Vista? Yeah, people still believe windows 7 was a big leap and Vista was just some candy on top on XP. But only because you can refer to it as Vista people remember it as a failure. If windows 7 would have been a service pack to Vista (which it, compared to the XP-Vista leap, kind of was) people wouldn't have so strong feelings about it.
I agree, that Of course, Apple doesn't have a "Relentless pursuit of quality" before introducing something to the public. They ship Operating Systems fast, and fix problems as they discover them.
I'm still stuck on OS X 10.7.5 because of how screwed up my Operating Environment became when I (idiotically) upgraded from a wonderfully stable 10.6.8 to 10.7.0. So traumatized was I by the six months of kernel panics, hard freezes, and application problems (Mail, Finder, Spotlight - you name it) that were only mostly resolved by 10.7.4, and now, with only about 3 exceptions, 10.7.5, that I won't even consider upgrading to a new OS X until it's been out for at least 6-9 months AND has had a 90 day window with no major reports of problems. The 90 day clock just started for 10.8.4 on June 3rd - I'll consider upgrading in September.
I disagree, because clearly the versions "10.6.8", "10.7.0" and "10.7.5" are burned into my poor traumatized brain, and I continue to be nervous about 10.8.x - though there are a number of features I'm looking forward to (Better Exchange Support, iCloud support, messages, syncing with reminders (which I use quite a bit on my iPhone), Safari Syncing with my iPhone, etc...)
It's been true of their second-Jobs-era mobile gadgets though. The first iPod and iPhone both delivered a polished experience from day 1, and their successors did too. The same was true of most Apple products since Jobs' return, including the Mac hardware. OS X was the big exception, but that was partly because Apple didn't have the luxury of time: it had to get out OS X as quickly as possible, while also continuing to patch up MacOS, in order to save the company.
I has never existed.
The secret is to not focus on versions. In time the quirks will get sorted out and if your users don't know when or at what version it became better they will assume that it has always been working well.
First OS X? Terrible, barely usable even if there had been any applications for it. Current OS X? Decent. But since they have the same name it has always been decent because people can't even distinguish between them. At best they know the code name for the up and coming version or the previous one but definitely no more than that.
Remember Vista? Yeah, people still believe windows 7 was a big leap and Vista was just some candy on top on XP. But only because you can refer to it as Vista people remember it as a failure. If windows 7 would have been a service pack to Vista (which it, compared to the XP-Vista leap, kind of was) people wouldn't have so strong feelings about it.