Apple's software remains one of the gold standards in the industry -- it's been around for over seven years now and is still churning out new ways to engage the user. The software, however, might not be living up to its potential, as one prominent programmer points out.

Former lead developer and chief technology officer of Tumblr Marco Arment recently set the technosphere on fire with a blog post pointing out that Apple's recent software releases have failed to live up to expectations. He points out that he wrote the post on an OS plagued by "embarrassing bugs and fundamental regressions."

Part of Apple's problem, Arment states, could be the tunnel vision approach to marketing.

"I suspect the rapid decline of Apple's software is a sign that marketing is too high a priority at Apple today: having major new releases every year is clearly impossible for the engineering teams to keep up with while maintaining quality. Maybe it's an engineering problem, but I suspect not -- I doubt that any cohesive engineering team could keep up with these demands and maintain significantly higher quality.

The problem seems to be quite simple: they're doing too much, with unrealistic deadlines."

While the criticism is sure valid, it doesn't necessarily mean that Apple's software is subpar compared to others. Sure, the recent slew of iOS catastrophes (including a lawsuit) don't exactly paint a rosy picture, but Apple's OS X and iOS systems are still popular worldwide and offer a number for features that other operating systems simply don't offer. There's also the fact that there is no such thing as perfect code -- every new advancement and leap must have to deal with issues that only arise when they are out on the ground in mass.

Arment himself regrets posting his thoughts on Apple's software quality, especially after the press picked up the story and it ran like wildfire.

"Instead of what was intended to be constructive criticism of the most influential company in my life, I handed the press more poorly written fuel to hamfistedly stab Apple with my name and reputation behind it," Arment wrote in a post one day later. "And my name will be on that forever."

What do you think of Arment's comments? Do you think Apple would be better off spending more time developing its software rather than aiming for a new version every year? Let us know in the comments section below. 

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