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Apps Getting Worse

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Re: Apps Getting Worse

#491

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #399
cemkum wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found their changes quite nice, however that's because I mostly use the app for podcasts. Maybe they are pivoting?

Companies with 6 billions dollars in revenue don't really pivot. They are diversifying. I guess they have determined it makes sense strategically. If I had to guess, podcasts and music listening are rival goods for a lot of their most valuable segments and they were worried about moves some of the new entrants in the market could have made. Might allow them to target new customers too. Hopefully more than the move wi…

Spotify essentially have no excess profit potential for music, because the labels will just take more money if and when Spotify increases subscribers/revenue.

This is in contrast to Podcasts, where nobody really owns the space, and they have a good shot at becoming the market leader.

I mean, I hate podcasts and wish they would go away from my Spotify, but I like the company and the music product, so I put up with it (for now, at least).

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#493

Post by p1peridine »

busymom0 wrote: post #403
p1peridine wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. I cancelled my spotify sub the same day I discovered soulseek. I keep my music collection (~100GB) offline now, all organized in folders.

Is soulseek available for mobile? (either iOS or android?)

Officially no, but check out Seeker on google play store:

> An unofficial soulseek client. Allows for searching, filtering, browsing folders, and downloading files.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.companynam...

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#494

Post by sprkwd »

the_duke wrote: post #182
zozbot234 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSS has the best designs, at least on the desktop. And it's becoming quite competitive in mobile and touch interfaces, too.

Which apps are you referring to? I couldn't name a single open source desktop apps which has good UX or design. It's natural, since these are built by developers, not designers, and they primarily care about functionality and don't have to entice users with good looks and UX. I do know some Android apps that are pretty good, eg RedReader for Reddit.

VLC?

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#495

Post by hotz »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #52

> It’s obvious. Every high-tech company has people called “Product Managers” (PMs) whose job it is to work with customers and management and engineers to define what products should do. 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 This mentality isn't unique to product managers. Mobile…

I've seen devs come and go. They start on a project, rewrite whatever they can get their hands on into the "way it should've been" and then fuck off after a year. The devs that stay have to figure out the maintenance story on their own because screw comments and documentation for this new bright and shiny way of doing things. I don't know if I'm the only one that sees the pattern in our company but God forbid you say anything to bruise the new hire's ego.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#496

Post by pavlov »

MattGaiser wrote: post #124
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #52

> It’s obvious. Every high-tech company has people called “Product Managers” (PMs) whose job it is to work with customers and management and engineers to define what products should do. 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 This mentality isn't unique to product managers. Mobile…

Developers get 1-2 years at a job before they fall behind in compensation. So my resume always needs to be fresh. I can’t be working with older technology because when it comes time to jump again, I won’t have the skills to do so. Asking an iOS developer to work on Objective-C is asking them to sacrifice their future prospects. Devs have a lot of the same incentives product managers do.

> ”Asking an iOS developer to work on Objective-C is asking them to sacrifice their future prospects.”

The FAANGs have tons of Objective-C code. The largest and most popular iOS apps in the world are actively developed in Obj-C and C++.

It’s absurd to me that mobile developers actively undermine their ability to get those extremely well-paid jobs by limiting themselves to one language.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#497

Post by xorcist »

mark-r wrote: post #377
sflicht wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is wrong with having a lot of settings? I absolutely hate that Twitter does not let me turn off their "features", but rather only lets me say "see less often" (which of course does nothing because I told Twitter not to track my preferences etc, but probably doesn't do anything for anyone anyway, except maybe provide a datapoint for some poorly thought out ML algorithm they put in place).

The more settings you have, the more settings you won't care about. It's easy to get settings fatigue. And every setting you introduce adds complexity to both the code and the testing.

Maybe this is a problem with a specific type of UI? Something like git feels like it has a million settings, yet they do not bother most people. When you need something, you can often search the manual and find out how to set it up.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#498

Post by tonyedgecombe »

ttepasse wrote: post #246
coldtea wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But how are you supposed to keep that up when apple forces you into a marketplace that basically relies on customer handouts, where your only way to make profit on your 99ct app is to hit it so big, that your have several million customers. Never saw it being a problem for Panic, the OmniGroup, Procreate, Things, and others. There are tons of apps that are not 99ct and do just fine...

Panic for years is rather open how they can't operate profitable on iOS and as a result discontinued many of their great iOS apps. The fear is that the Mac app market goes the same way like the iOS App Store.

Also wasn't Omni laying people off recently. I suspect all these companies are struggling.

It's interesting that Apple struggled for a long time with 3rd party software. Developers weren't interested because the volumes were too small. Now it's almost the opposite, there are plenty of customers but the market is awash with cheap or free options.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#499

Post by manigandham »

wodenokoto wrote: post #122
sushisource wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

> Music player UI is a solved problem. No it isn’t. Not even close.

What is unsolved? What's the revolutionary change since Winamp or Itunes in 2003?

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#500

Post by tonyedgecombe »

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…

>The ecosystem has also lost its mojo, and Apple is the one that killed it.

It's not just Apple, this has been a general trend for several decades. In the nineties I paid for Office (about £400 I think), now I use Google Docs. It was the same for development tools, £1800 for an MSDN subscription, now I use VS Community, git and open source components.

I suspect this is inevitable because the marginal cost of software is so low.

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