Apple App store depressingly slow

[Dave2002]

I thought I'd check out a few things on the Apple App store, and review my previous purchases.

One of our machines is upstairs, connected via WiFi, and the broadband link is (usually) via BT.

I went to the Apple App store a couple of times today, and it is abysmally slow on this machine (recently upgraded iMac 21.5 inch).
I thought the problem might be our local WiFi, since the machine is some way away from the BT Home Hub, so I finally decided to do a speed test.

http://www.speedtest.net/

This showed a download speed of around 18 Mbps, and an upload speed of around 3 Mbps, so even if the rates are limited slightly by our WiFi there's
nothing too serious, and it doesn't look to me as though I need to reconfigure our internal network to use cable or other links.

Maybe if I restart the machine the App store will go faster? Not really very impressed by this.

I did earlier on download a video editing (amongst other things) application file (open source) Blender - around 170 Mbytes without problems or major holdups.

[Lento]

I wonder if your problem could be due to Apple's servers being pounded by people downloading the latest OSX update. Still, this doesn't usually cause issues...

[Dave2002]

I wonder if your problem could be due to Apple's servers being pounded by people downloading the latest OSX update. Still, this doesn't usually cause issues...

I'm not sure. and indeed I didn't know that there might be an update. Having tinkered around on several machines during the day I now suspect that the issue has been related to software updates downloading in the background. Doesn't seem particularly clever though. Maybe the software download uses some form of data carousel, and tries to keep user machines more or less in step, but even so I'd have thought it ought to be possible to do more, including satisfying end user requests and allowing them to browse the App store. Even if that turned out to be too taxing, surely it would not be beyond the wit of man to program a warning message e.g. "Accessing and downloads from the App Store are temporarily slow due to your incoming update download".


Perhaps I've had a bad Apple day!

Further to that, I just noticed that OS 10.11.4 came out on 21st March. Maybe that has something to do with it. A 6.2 Gbyte download.

[Anastasius]

I'm not sure. and indeed I didn't know that there might be an update. Having tinkered around on several machines during the day I now suspect that the issue has been related to software updates downloading in the background. Doesn't seem particularly clever though. Maybe the software download uses some form of data carousel, and tries to keep user machines more or less in step, but even so I'd have thought it ought to be possible to do more, including satisfying end user requests and allowing them to browse the App store. Even if that turned out to be too taxing, surely it would not be beyond the wit of man to program a warning message e.g. "Accessing and downloads from the App Store are temporarily slow due to your incoming update download".


Perhaps I've had a bad Apple day!

Further to that, I just noticed that OS 10.11.4 came out on 21st March. Maybe that has something to do with it. A 6.2 Gbyte download.

If you want a prime example of 'beyond the wit of man' then look no further than DVLA and the bizarre way they (don't) handle information and communication if you stupidly (like me) opt to pay your Road Tax using Direct debit. Or how they handle (badly) telephone SORN applications. Or how they handle caller queues with a recorded message that basically says 'We're busy so sod off'. Or how they (don't ) train their staff properly to handle user calls.

[Dave2002]

Further to that, I just noticed that OS 10.11.4 came out on 21st March. Maybe that has something to do with it. A 6.2 Gbyte download.

I seem to have, or at least think I have, "upgraded" the two machines running El Capitan to 10.11.4. This is now wasting more time, as it insists on doing new kinds of things on start up - and at first it doesn't actually seem fast at all.

One concern is that now it seems to be getting more agressive (assertive?) re getting one's Apple Store id in order to connect to iCloud. I don't want to be forced to connect to iCloud. This appears on a splash screen before any further progress can be made, though connecting to iCloud and all the other stuff can be skipped.

There is, apparently, an option to use different passwords for iCloud and iTunes, though I've not checked that. Maybe I need to get another id for that. I really do not want any of my data going up to any form of cloud storage without my knowledge or permission. On the other hand, I don't really care who knows what apps and "tracks/albums" I've bought from the App store.

I suspect that any initial speed problems with 10.11.4 will gradually disappear, though in my case on this machine at least, it's ironic that I've just spent real money on upgrading the memory, and also buying an external Firewire drive and and SSD drive in the hope of getting things to run faster, and yet within days Apple put out an upgrade which seemed to grind progress to a halt for a while.

[Anastasius]

Why did you upgrade? I'm afraid that I try and be a bit tardy.

The iCloud thing I just hit cancel.

Migrate back to Mavericks! I cannot see me moving up any time soon. Life is too short.

[Dave2002]

Why did you upgrade? I'm afraid that I try and be a bit tardy.

The iCloud thing I just hit cancel.

Migrate back to Mavericks! I cannot see me moving up any time soon. Life is too short.

Originally I installed El Capitan because I either had to install that or Yosemite in order to run the video editing sofrware I was intending to use - Premiere Elements. Perhaps I could have used some oher software and avoided that. Now I'm running a trial of Final Cut Pro X, which seems to do the job I want. I don't particularly want to have to revert to an earlier OS version having got to thie stage.

Re 10.11.4 I simply thought that having already got El Capitan up and running it would not be unreasonable to go with the suggested update. It seemed to have got most of the way to installing itself anyway, and I thought at this stage it would have been OK. Maybe I was wrong.......

[Anastasius]

Never upgrade immediately, golden rule. Wait for the dust to settle.

[Dave2002]

That has been my usual policy, but having several machines I can generally afford to do that. If there's a specific fault I may want to try to get fixed I might test out suggested upgrades, but otherwise you are right, there should be no rush.

I still have one machine running Snow Leopard.

I think within a particular series e.g Yosemite, El Capitan etc. that waiting before installing a "minor" upgrade may make sense. Not quite sure why I didn't this time round, unless Apple somehow managed to thrust this upon me. I know they didn't actually force me to change, but I suspect that files were being loaded in the background ready for me to agree the "update", hence my noticing slow performance.