iPhoto 4.02-Needing More QA

A couple of days ago, Apple released their 4.02 update to iPhoto. As of today, the update has been withdrawn from Software Update and even manual downloading. Why? Because immediately upon releasing the thing, Apple started hearing from a bevy of users that iPhoto 4.02 wouldn’t quit. Despite second thoughts, I was one of the people who downloaded the update as soon as it was released and hit the problem. iPhoto would take 20 – 30 seconds to quit after I told it to.

To recover, I had to delete iPhoto from My Applications folder, reinstall it from my iLife 04 DVD, and reinstall the iPhoto 4.01 patch. A lot of trouble to go to because…once again…Apple did an apparently poor job of performing quality control on its software.

Doesn’t Apple release its application updates in beta form to developers? If not, why not? It certainly does seem it needs to in light of the numerous times it has withdrawn updates lately. It needs to use some kind of test audience before it releases this stuff to the mainstream. Apple’s Software Updates are rapidly approaching the level of lack of credibility as Microsoft’s Windows’ security patches. It’s hard to trust either of them.