Apple iPhone 6: Expect steady stream of updates to squash the bugs and glitches

As expected, Apple has sold its new iPhones by the pallet-load: 10 million units in just three days. The queue to buy one direct from Apple stretched - as I found to my cost - quite some distance early on Friday morning. But not everything is well in the garden of Apple - be it for owners of the newest iPhone 6+ or the oldest device that runs iOS 8, the iPhone 4s.

Before iOS 8’s release to the public, hundreds of thousands of app developers and others had access to the beta version; their feedback on faults and failings helped Apple tweak and refine it. Now that iOS 8 is in the hands of millions of users further problems are being found - and users are not backward in coming forwards about what they’re finding.

Two of the most popular threads on the discussion page of MacRumors are titled “iOS 8 is a disaster” and “post iOS 8 bugs here”; “fiasco”, “nightmare” and “the worst release in history” litter the threads. For some the wi-fi no longer works on their updated iOS device; for others there’s no sound; still others complain of drastically reduced battery life. One of the biggest gripes has been over the seeming removal of the camera roll where photos are found (don’t worry, it’s still there).

Even established writers on all aspects of Apple, such as Mark Gurman, a tech editor at 9to5Mac, aren’t impressed: “iOS on the Plus needs so much work I don't understand how this shipped.

The larger screens of the iPhone 6 and 6+ have themselves caused some angst, with apps yet to be updated and, as a result, looking less than pin-sharp.

But is this anything new - or a worry for Apple? No - and probably not.

The unhappy and dissatisfied are always more vocal in making themselves heard - it’s less likely a satisfied user will use social media to tell the world that everything is working just grand, thank you very much. And each new version of iOS has brought its own set of problems.

Back in 2012 we saw iOS 6 and the embarrassment which was Apple Maps, with its infamous melted roads and its mis-placing of Dublin Airport; the senior executive in charge of Maps left the company soon after.

When iOS 7 came out in 2013 tech blogs abounded with complaints of bugs and crashes - and even that users were being made to feel ill by a new ‘motion’ option. What happened then is certain to happen now: the months after the major release of the new operating system are followed by a steady stream of updates designed to squash these bugs and glitches. It won’t be too long before 8.0.1 arrives - and it’ll come as no surprise if that causes some new unexpected problems of its own.

And there’s some good news for anyone with an iPhone 4s which is struggling to run iOS 8: for the moment at least Apple is allowing owners to downgrade back to iOS 7 which performs much better on this older device.

Marc Settle blogs about iPhone and other smartphones

Smartphone journalism: Video