iOS ninja master Federico Viticci shares his view on whether Apple has really lost “the functional high ground”:

My problem with most commentary to Marco’s piece is the binary interpretation of Apple’s software releases: that they should either do new stuff or fix bugs. That’s too simplistic and shortsighted. Software is never bug-free, but there’s a threshold where it’s good enough to be shipped. I want to see Apple get better at releasing updates like iOS 8 and Yosemite with a better balance between novelty and stability. They shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. I don’t want to see Apple “taking a year off” to fix iOS, as that wouldn’t be beneficial to the company and its developer community. Considering Apple’s scale and the uncharted territory of several iOS 8 and Yosemite features, that’s a tricky proposition.

I very much agree with Federico in that the right approach to improve the stability and quality of Apple software is probably not to slow down to the point of no new features. There’s quite a bit of wiggle room between “slow down” and “no new features”. The key, as ever, is finding the right compromise.