Apple quietly fixed a problem that made its Macs 'like using Windows 15 years ago'

Apple has gotten rid of a troublesome piece of software in its desktop operating system that was causing users to find it tricky to connect to the internet, 9to5Mac reports.

"discoveryd" was a new piece of software that was meant to improve the way Macs connect to the internet. But it didn't work as intended, and caused a bunch of issues.

Now, Apple has cut discoveryd from its operating system, and returned to the old way of connecting to the internet.

Developer Craig Hockenberry was one of the first people to find the bug that Apple delayed fixing for weeks.

Hockenberry wrote that "discoveryd" caused connectivity issues for Macs. Waking up a Mac running Yosemite from sleep mode could cause it to lose network connection, and discoveryd was to blame. Hockenberry reported the bug to Apple months ago, but it has only just been fixed.

The bug in Apple's software was frustrating because Hockenberry said that he had "wasted many hours" trying to get his devices to connect to the internet. He likened the problems to "the bullsh*t that folks using Windows have suffered with for years."

Another developer, Marco Arment, has also written about the discoveryd issue. He said that the problem was frustrating, and that the issue "probably won't be fixed anytime soon." Arment found a way to temporarily fix it, though: rebooting all his machines. But that wasn't a long-term solution, it's "just like using Windows fifteen years ago," Arment wrote.