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Apps Getting Worse

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Re: Apps Getting Worse

#281

Post by leppr »

grishka wrote: post #220
mwcampbell wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Runtime efficiency is just one consideration to be balanced against others. Maybe you would have an easier time getting a job if you would accept the new stuff and be willing to compromise on runtime efficiency so your team could crank out more features and more quickly meet its business goals. Note: the issue isn't your individual productivity; being willing to go along with the pack has its own advantages.

> meet its business goals I don't want to work at a place that has "business goals". I don't want to work on a proprietary product either. I just want to use my skills to make the world a better place, and moving money around ain't that. I don't want to participate in the rat race or help it in any shape or form.

Your unprovoked comment about not having a job read like you were desiring one.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#282

Post by cpeterso »

hutzlibu wrote: post #228
city41 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. I think bugginess just doesn't affect bottom lines of most companies these days, hence the state we're in. Also, anecdotally, I find people are very tolerant of bugs and just suffer in silence a lot of the time.

" I find people are very tolerant of bugs and just suffer in silence a lot of the time." Most people probably blame themself of not getting it. Or throw hands in the air of what to do about it. And most don't know that you can make software that fits to the user needs and not the other way around. OpenSource could have potential here, but most free software developers are not really into UX design either and seem to…

If your users don't have another option, or your product has serious network effects, users will keep coming back. From Fast Company 2016:

"To test its users’ loyalty, Facebook sometimes made its Android app crash for several hours over the course of several years. ... Users were so hooked that they “never stopped coming back,” despite the errors."

https://fastcompany.com/3055089 (2016)

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#283

Post by oceanghost »

j-pb wrote: post #9

The ecosystem has also lost its mojo, and Apple is the one that killed it. The good old days of really good, dedicated mac software studios are over. Made by Sofa, Delicious Monster, SubEthaEdit, TextMate, Panic Inc, Rogue Amoeba, Strange Flavour. These were really great software studios that really upheld a standard of excellence for Mac software. But how are you supposed to keep that up when apple forces you into a…

I agree whole-hardheartedly with this.

When I jumped into Apple in the early 2000's, there was amazing software. I recall in particular my first Intel-Mac-laptop. There was this amazing program that changed the GUI to look like the Bjork video "All is Full of Love". It was absolute magic (beyond the random crashes of the first Intel macs which SUCKED).

I think the problem with all app-stores is this:

1. There's lots of very low quality software. 2. There's no way to verify the software does what it says it does before purchasing.

I can't tell you how many times I've bought an app for my daughter--even from "reputable" companies that only has a few minutes of content before it starts begging for money, coins etc.

Or even if the game didn't beg for money, it was just nonsense. I bought my daughter a game that had no pay mechanics-- but, you had to earn "coins" to do impossible challenges to get prizes. I ended up playing most of the game for her because it was just too hard for a kid, and it was just too hard for an adult who cut his teeth on Atari and Nintendo. It wasn't fun, just tedious. The game required you to make 300ish correct decisions with about one second each in-between them.

In the old days, I was happy to drop 25$ on an interesting app.

I'd love to check out Panics Nova but the Apple Ecosystem isn't viable for me anymore. :-/

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#284

Post by throw7 »

Why is "Google Play Music -> Youtube Music" not on his list. It's the perfect example of the detritus filth that flows from Google PM's.

Another example is Android Auto. I was kind of interested when Google announced it was being "optimized" to just work standalone.

The problem is, is that it is actually way more optimized for me to just use google maps and my music player and my podcast player and etc, than it is to use android auto because android auto sleeps the screen and I have to click the power button on the side to make it wake up (vs just double tap to enter the phone). smh. Just can't even get very simple things correct.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#285

Post by [deleted] »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #29

The worst offender recently in my opinion is Spotify on desktop. It used to be that when you clicked on an artists page you would see all the music tracks listed. Now it's all buried deep in and you have to search through the individual albums. Even the list of albums itself is not shown on the main artist page, you have to click "See Discography" first. The "Home" page is even worse. Where is my discover weekly play…

[deleted]

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#286

Post by drdec »

pentagrama wrote: post #265
Negitivefrags wrote: post #29

The worst offender recently in my opinion is Spotify on desktop. It used to be that when you clicked on an artists page you would see all the music tracks listed. Now it's all buried deep in and you have to search through the individual albums. Even the list of albums itself is not shown on the main artist page, you have to click "See Discography" first. The "Home" page is even worse. Where is my discover weekly play…

I have to kind of disagree, my experience with Spotify desktop which I use daily (almost don't use the mobile app) was from awful to bad. I still find it hard to navigate and find things, and the performance is bad, but before was really really bad, the last iterations come out well for me. I will like more features. For example I really want a feature to make playlists with albums, you can create playlists with all…

> For example I really want a feature to make playlists with albums, you can create playlists with all the songs of many albums, but is not possible to see it as a list of albums with the cover arts, like the Library. For example make a playlist of favorite albums of 2021, favorite albums of 90s rap, favorite albums of Bowie, etc.

This kind of thing boggles my mind. An album, a playlist, the current queue, these are all lists of songs. They ought to be implemented by the same model under the hood. You ought to be able to do the same set of actions to any of them - add to a playlist, add to the queue, etc. But for some reason you can only do some of things to some of the lists of songs and that changes depending on which client you are using.

This is not unique to Spotify either, Amazon Music had the same issues.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#287

Post by [deleted] »

j-pb wrote: post #9

The ecosystem has also lost its mojo, and Apple is the one that killed it. The good old days of really good, dedicated mac software studios are over. Made by Sofa, Delicious Monster, SubEthaEdit, TextMate, Panic Inc, Rogue Amoeba, Strange Flavour. These were really great software studios that really upheld a standard of excellence for Mac software. But how are you supposed to keep that up when apple forces you into a…

[deleted]

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#288

Post by phendrenad2 »

"No PM in history has ever said “This seems to be working pretty well, let’s leave it the way it is.” Because that’s not bold. That’s not visionary. That doesn’t get you promoted"

I think it's something else. It's first of all a self-reinforcing vicious cycle of "keeping up with the Joneses" brinksmanship. When Hulu releases a shiny new homepage layout, the Director of Amazon Prime Video probably fires off a memo to the PMs and designers and UI/UX researchers (haha I joke), demanding that they also refresh their style. Doesn't matter if it's perfectly fine. You need to DO something, dammit!!! And of course, since the motivating factor was how beautiful the competitor's UI is, you need to make your UI equally pretty. Usability? Who cares. The CEO/Director probably doesn't even use the product, his/her kids do.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#289

Post by workinghard »

I used to love old aws UI. current one sucks and wastes my time so much.

I knew i could not change their minds so decided to change the cloud provider and using alternate services whenever and whereever i could.

in my opinion, Whoever designed the current AWS UI should be fired.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#290

Post by dec0dedab0de »

sushisource wrote: post #104
Negitivefrags wrote: post #29

The worst offender recently in my opinion is Spotify on desktop. It used to be that when you clicked on an artists page you would see all the music tracks listed. Now it's all buried deep in and you have to search through the individual albums. Even the list of albums itself is not shown on the main artist page, you have to click "See Discography" first. The "Home" page is even worse. Where is my discover weekly play…

I hope people will use Spotify as a case study in how to fuck up a UI over time. The service itself is fine, I quite like some of the music it finds for me on discover, but the UI is on a slow death march towards complete uselessness, and some features have always been hopelessly broken (queuing). From a business standpoint I find it fascinating. It's about as perfect as an example it gets of "if it ain't broke, don'…

* At some point they should've just said "welp, don't need a UI team any more"*

They could have made the service compatible with all of the existing media players, and never hired a UI team to begin with.

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