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It Just Works

danielandrews.com

21–30 of 192 posts

Re: It Just Works

#21
post #2

I dunno. I've never experienced any of the problems described in the post. Always kind of dangerous to extrapolate from n=1. It also feels somewhat myopic to claim that people don't like apps like Notes or Calendar because there's more featureful alternatives. The point of stock apps isn't to please the power user.

My wife's Macbook has been a huge disappointment. The login is slow, the computer crashes all the time, and safari stopped working. And it's just over two years old.

So N = 2.

Re: It Just Works

#22
post #9

"Like every tech company nowadays, Apple wants to do it all." I'd say that Apple has always wanted to do it all. They've always built the OS + the hardware + the software. Arguably, it's that "end to end design" that's helped them achieve their success.

[deleted]

Re: It Just Works

#23
When it works, it is brilliant and seamless. On the other hand, there is not any redundancy, in the sense that if one piece of the equation (OS + the hardware + the software) is rubbish, it cannot be readily replaced by substitution (e.g. swapping Windows for Linux).

Re: It Just Works

#24

Apple makes things that "do more" than their products of old, and we expect them to do more than devices past. The combination of features plus our expectation that all our devices be aware of what is happening on the others at all times is a recipe for a combinatorial explosion of unpredicted states, race conditions, you name it. I too miss the simplicity and "it just works" factor of past days. But it's a lot easie…

Yes, I use one of each of those from Google and they all work pretty well :).

Re: It Just Works

#25
I've been increasingly feeling the same way, especially about OS X, but what's the alternative for a developer-friendly desktop operating system that looks and works beautifully (almost) out of the box?

Re: It Just Works

#26
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iTunes is absolutely terrible. I did several updates for my girlfriend and friends, and none of them figured out iTunes. Most of them downgraded.

Spotify is a possible replacement (even without their streaming and music finding services), but I find that application quite buggy.

Spotify's approach to customer engagement and accountability is a little better than Apple's in that they have a product support forum. But their contempt for the customer seems to be about the same WRT to removing features on a whim.

They removed a deal-breaker feature a couple of years ago (filter a list for a song) and have only just managed to put it back, only half working, now. I don't know how bad iTunes has got (haven't used it in 5 years) but I can't recommend Spotify as a replacement.

If anyone does have any suggestions, I'd be very glad to read them!

Re: It Just Works

#27

Yes, I've also noticed an increasing number of software bugs on my Macs. FWIW, I wanted to try out the Dell XPS "Developer Edition," which appears to be about as close as you can get to a Macbook level build quality in a linux box (without having to jump though the hoops of installing linux on a macbook itself), and you simply can't order it from Dell's website. A chat with a rep suggested that it's out of stock. So,…

I would get ThinkPad W550s instead. Plus you can get 32gb RAM unlike most laptops.

Re: It Just Works

#28

Apple makes things that "do more" than their products of old, and we expect them to do more than devices past. The combination of features plus our expectation that all our devices be aware of what is happening on the others at all times is a recipe for a combinatorial explosion of unpredicted states, race conditions, you name it. I too miss the simplicity and "it just works" factor of past days. But it's a lot easie…

Yes, I use one of each of those from Google and they all work pretty well :).

Mm hmm.

Re: It Just Works

#29

It's really frustrating for me just how many bugs Apple software has. Let's look at a simple one - the icons on iOS safari for frequently visited websites. They "randomly" assign the wrong favicon e.g. I click the Facebook icon and it loads Hacker News. This has been present since iOS 8. Yesterday I pulled down the notification screen and it occupies only 50% of my screen. Cue another reboot of the iPhone. My iMac. U…

> My Macbook Air. It's better, but the power button no longer does anything when I press it.

Press and hold. It's this way to prevent accidental logouts which were frequent in my case when it was just a press.

Re: It Just Works

#30
post #16

Major Apple applications have become inscrutable and frustrating. - iTunes, Music and the iTunes store are a mess. I understood the old iTunes organization. Navigation within my music collection has become highly non-intuitive. It seems that there are multiple paradigms (long list of tracks, and another sectioned off by album), and it isn't always clear why one or the other is used. I keep forgetting how to get to th…

iTunes is absolutely terrible. I did several updates for my girlfriend and friends, and none of them figured out iTunes. Most of them downgraded.

I've been liking Google Play Music so far.
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