Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple’s Magnum Opus

brooksreview.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 76 posts

Re: Apple’s Magnum Opus

#61

Post by seabee »

bad_user wrote: post #49
mclin wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I add a calendar event to google calendar I'm still a bit surprised when I later notice it in my iPhone calendar. Same with updating contacts across devices.

To speak the truth - the Android integration with Google's contacts could be better. To transform all my locally stored contacts and make them Google contacts I had to first export them to a file, copy them on my laptop, upload to Google, mix&match duplicates and other corrections, download an export again on my computer, delete all my contacts from my phone (which also deleted my contacts from Google), reupload that…

> download an export again on my computer

What does this step achieve?

The process was pretty easy for me - install Motorola Phone Tools, export the CSV file containing my contacts, make some changes in Excel, upload to Google. There's even an 'Import from SIM' option on my phone (possibly a feature of HTC's People app).

Even on a featurephone your SIM contacts will conflict with your phone-stored contacts. There's an easy solution: don't view your SIM contacts.

I don't see what shit Google needs to fix here, other than documentation, and in this case isn't that the handset manufacturer's responsibility?

Re: Apple’s Magnum Opus

#62

Post by bad_user »

seabee wrote: post #61
bad_user wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To speak the truth - the Android integration with Google's contacts could be better. To transform all my locally stored contacts and make them Google contacts I had to first export them to a file, copy them on my laptop, upload to Google, mix&match duplicates and other corrections, download an export again on my computer, delete all my contacts from my phone (which also deleted my contacts from Google), reupload that…

> download an export again on my computer What does this step achieve? The process was pretty easy for me - install Motorola Phone Tools, export the CSV file containing my contacts, make some changes in Excel, upload to Google. There's even an 'Import from SIM' option on my phone (possibly a feature of HTC's People app). Even on a featurephone your SIM contacts will conflict with your phone-stored contacts. There's a…

Since I had to go through all this trouble, I also wanted to take care of all the duplicates and all the junk, to have a single source of truth for my phone numbers - so I deleted everything from my phone, which in turn deleted everything from Google, and that export was a backup that I uploaded to Google's Contacts again. It's weird, but that's what I did to get what I wanted.

This file I also processed locally with a script to merge entries that had different names / different phone numbers, using some heuristics I came up with.

I agree that SIM contacts are a common problem, but there should be an easier way to handle it.

My main problem was that there is no option to upload your SIM contacts to Google and no proper tools to get rid of the junk, only a merge option that functions differently in Google Contacts than it does on Android.

And the contacts export only exports on an external SD card -- now this seemed really weird to me. I actually had to go out and buy an external SD, otherwise I couldn't do it.

Don't get me wrong, I love Android and I love Google Apps, but if you're going to implement synchronization, you also have to give the user the proper tools to take care of legacy.

Re: Apple’s Magnum Opus

#63

Post by meric »

podperson wrote: post #2

I think this article pretty much nails a key part of it. What Apple wants to do is implement a seamless digital world that Just Works. (It remains to be seen whether it does in fact Just Work.) Oddly enough, you could accuse them of, once again, stealing ideas from Xerox PARC (and, once again, be redirected to Douglas Englebart et al) ... the kind of thing Apple is demonstrating with iCloud, iOS5, and Lion is essenti…

In a way, Xerox PARC did get compensated for some of its ideas. Quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_(company)

"The first successful commercial GUI product was the Apple Macintosh, which was heavily inspired by PARC's work; Xerox was allowed to buy pre-IPO stock from Apple, in exchange for engineer visits and an understanding that Apple would create a GUI product."

Yes, Xerox later did sue Apple but...

"The lawsuit was dismissed because the presiding judge ruled "that Xerox's complaints were inappropriate for a variety of legal reasons,""

Re: Apple’s Magnum Opus

#65

Post by bad_user »

joubert wrote: post #58
bad_user wrote: post #43

I don’t know of a single other way to take a document I am working on with my iPad and jump to my Mac having the document up-to-date I do, it's called Google Docs.

Have you tried editing something with Google Docs on your iPad?

No, I don't own an iPad - but I do own 2 laptops, 2 desktops, one Android and one iPhone - have Google Apps installed on my domain, and it has been the single most useful online service I ever used.

Email, Contacts, Calendar, Docs and Pictures are all available and in sync on every piece of equipment I have.

And of course Apple's products are working a lot better on the iPad and I'm pretty sure customers will be pleased with iCloud, but to sing it as if it is the second coming of Christ is really stretching it.

Re: Apple’s Magnum Opus

#66

Post by saturdaysaint »

Everything I really want in the cloud, I have in the cloud - music (Rdio), podcasts (Instacast), books (Kindle), text files (Dropbox/apps). I am hopeful that Apple can simplify cloud services for appmakers. I've found many of the Dropbox syncing apps (ie text editors) fairly wonky - requiring an explicit sync confirmation or mostly just allowing me to push a file to a Dropbox. I hope that they enable/encourage a more seamless "autosave" experience to be standard.

Re: Apple’s Magnum Opus

#67

Post by cicero »

bad_user wrote: post #43

I don’t know of a single other way to take a document I am working on with my iPad and jump to my Mac having the document up-to-date I do, it's called Google Docs.

I use Google Docs, and I like it fine. Apple is taking a different approach which takes advantage of the full power of a native app. The advantage of Google Docs is it works on any computer that has a modern browser. Apple's solution will not have the ubiquity of Google's, but it has the potential to provide a richer user experience. It may be worth it for many of us to buy Apple hardware to get that richer experience, and that is what Apple is counting on.

Re: Apple’s Magnum Opus

#69

Post by leviathant »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #68

Am I the only one who thinks that a secure git server is so much ore useful than Dropbox, iCloud, etc.? Versioning. Access to old versions of artifacts.

A van with a V8 and a manual transmission is so much more useful than a compact four-banger auto-trans hatchback. What kind of car do you drive?

Re: Apple’s Magnum Opus

#70

Post by leviathant »

rimantas wrote: post #42
bane wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Apple crossed this long ago with the iPod. "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."

And similar sentiments were repeated with iPhone and even more with iPad. Apple does not do focus groups research for a reason.

The first iPod actually was pretty lame. Sales didn't take off until it was cheaper, used USB, and iTunes was Windows compatible - see also http://www.systemshootouts.org/ipod_sales.html ... Apple's "focus groups research" involves selling a product, sometimes with absurd flaws (e.g. the headphone jack on the 1st gen iPhone) and selling an updated version a year later. This works out because there are people who have bought every iteration of the iPod and keep them in collections, and people who deny to this day that the iPhone4 deathgrip exists (bought my iPhone4 three months ago, when I hold it like I've held my 1st gen iPhone, I lose signal, but have a case now so that's moot), and it seems to work out for them. Why pay for focus groups when you can have the focus groups pay you?
Post reply on HN