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If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

macworld.com

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Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#491

Post by mewse »

baud147258 wrote: post #418
mewse wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grab it with your mouse, drag it off the dock, done. I guess I’m not really seeing what I’m supposed to be outraged about, here. Modifying the stuff in the dock on OSX isn’t difficult or unintuitive at all? Just grab the stuff you don’t want on there and drag it out, and grab the stuff you do want on there and drag it in? It’s just using the standard desktop metaphor and interface, and you’re in no danger of breaking…

> Grab it with your mouse, drag it off the dock, done. Same thing with Windows too.

Really? That doesn't seem to work for system tray icons for me. Are you certain?

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#492

Post by dangravell »

mojuba wrote: post #96

Apple's new Music app absolutely ruined my entire local music collection one day, when updating from macOS 11.4 to 11.5 (I think). My music collection traveled with me from OS update to OS update for about 13 years with no problem. And now pretty much everything is broken, some files can not be played even though they are on disk, half of the album covers are gone, syncing with the phone gives a ton of errors. What h…

It's definitely an app-level thing. About album art specifically I tried hacking around a bit, but when the software itself is buggy you're a bit limited in what you can do https://www.blisshq.com/music-library-management-blog/2021/0...

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#493

Post by pjmlp »

makecheck wrote: post #204

While this article focused primarily on things being left unmaintained, etc. there is also a huge problem with things being touched for no reason and making them worse . When handed what must be a mountain of bugs and unfinished items, why the hell did they prioritize things like breaking notifications and Safari tabs, for instance? They’re in a position where engineering resources desperately need to be closing gaps…

When a product is good enough the UI/UX folks don't have anything left to do, so UI's keep being rebooted due to job safety.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#494

Post by pjmlp »

yosito wrote: post #292
jjice wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something so many big companies do, and I hate it. Every 6 months it seems Spotify has to change their UI and make it harder to find what I want. Just make a decent UI and stick to it. I don't understand why there are redesigns over and over and over. My assumption is that it keeps people employed, even if they aren't necessarily needed. It at least takes away from more important issues being taken care of.

> why there are redesigns over and over and over Because they aren't building UIs to be useful for pleasant for users anymore. Once these data-driven companies have enough users locked in, they begin optimizing the user interface to manipulate user behavior for profit. They shift from helping you do what you want to manipulating you into doing what they want you to do. It's actually gotten so bad that open source sof…

GNOME begs to differ though.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#495

Post by itzprime »

ziml77 wrote: post #330
josephg wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it doesn’t really matter who’s fault it is from the perspective of the user. All the windows computers at the computer shop ship with bloated 3rd party crap. Except the apple computers. It’s also not Google’s fault that most android vendors don’t support old devices for long. Or Linux’s fault that hardware vendors make linux drivers an afterthought. As a consumer, I don’t care why any of this happens. I…

Who decides what's bloat? macOS ships with Apple News, Podcasts, the App Store, Books, Garageband, Stocks, iMovie, Keynote, etc. A lot of their stuff is even pinned to the taskbar by default. Should be consider that bloat? I don't need any of those programs (or prefer alternatives), so it seems like it's bloat for me.

Yes it is bloat. But there is a difference in easy to get rid bloat (just delete them in Apple) vs needing to change registry settings, etc and jump over several hoops to remove the bloat that comes with windows

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#496

Post by smallerfish »

mattlondon wrote: post #481
smallerfish wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a truly broken install. What's the maintenance history of the machine? Have you been patching it from third party repos? Why are you running Jack on a work computer anyway? Back up your documents and do a fresh install. It'll take you an hour and you'll regain stability.

Corporate centrally managed install. Dell hardware. Jack is apparently needed to get Bluetooth to emit audio reliably... but I would not put much trust in that since it didn't fix Bluetooth not working.

That's annoying. Honestly it sounds like your IT dept is missing some expertise, and maybe tried to be too clever by installing some hacky add-ons, which destabilized things. It seems like something of a ridiculous stretch on their part, for example, to think that Jack would be required for bluetooth.

That said, as long as they're willing to be hacky: bluetooth audio worked reasonably well for me _until_ I got a headset with its own dongle. At that point the original bluetooth dongle stopped pairing reliably with the speakers I was using. That prompted me to switch to pipewire and it's been rock solid since. You might suggest to IT that they experiment with pipewire (since it's the new hotness, they may actually take you up on it.)

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#497

Post by dkersten »

ericd wrote: post #434
dkersten wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I play plenty of games and have a Steam library of ~400 or so games. I haven't had a Windows install in a few years. The only issues I've had with Windows games on Linux, using Proton on Steam, is that it doesn't work in Wayland (but every game I've tried works fine under X, of course I do check ProtonDB.com before buying games that don't have official Linux support).

Oh nice, I clearly need to read up on Proton, there’re some Windows-only games I’ve been missing. Would you say it’d satisfy for twitch shooters?

I personally don’t play many, but generally you won’t see any performance difference. Do check ProtonDB to see if the ones you have in mind work as expected. Typically games that are rated platinum work as well as on Windows, Gold typically works well but some people had some issues (Check the comments, sometimes the issues are unrelated things like the launcher not working but the game works fine) while anything else expect headaches. Some multiplayer shooters have issues with anti cheat for example.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#498

Post by sobani »

WalterBright wrote: post #477
redler wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What works for me is to not attempt to time it at all. Simply place two fingers directly on a message. Leave them there. Wait a second, then start sliding down. The message list should immediately shift to the right, exposing selection "circles" at the left edge of each message. As you continue sliding downward, each circle you "pass" will become selected. You can continue holding as you reach the bottom of the scree…

I put two fingers on a message. The message shades slightly. I slide down. The shading goes away, and the screen slides down. It does not slide right, it does not collect $200.

When I put two fingers at the same time on a message, the checkboxes immediately appear. If I'm even slightly off, the checkboxes never appear and instead I get to see the contents of the message when I let go.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#499

Post by ericd »

dkersten wrote: post #497
ericd wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh nice, I clearly need to read up on Proton, there’re some Windows-only games I’ve been missing. Would you say it’d satisfy for twitch shooters?

I personally don’t play many, but generally you won’t see any performance difference. Do check ProtonDB to see if the ones you have in mind work as expected. Typically games that are rated platinum work as well as on Windows, Gold typically works well but some people had some issues (Check the comments, sometimes the issues are unrelated things like the launcher not working but the game works fine) while anything els…

Yeah, I don't either, mostly just curious since that seems like it'd be the most demanding category. I've actually mostly been missing Battle Brothers which is... not latency sensitive. And it looks like ProtonDB gives it a platinum! Thanks for the pointer to that.

Sadly looks like a lot of the top 10 are in "Borked" status, though.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#500

Post by latexr »

noneeeed wrote: post #231
makecheck wrote: post #204

While this article focused primarily on things being left unmaintained, etc. there is also a huge problem with things being touched for no reason and making them worse . When handed what must be a mountain of bugs and unfinished items, why the hell did they prioritize things like breaking notifications and Safari tabs, for instance? They’re in a position where engineering resources desperately need to be closing gaps…

The current UX of notifications is terrible . After months of using it I still don't understand the mental model. A notification comes up, I hover and wait for the cross to appear and click it. But then some time later I unlock my machine or something happens and apparantly all my notifications are still there for some reason and I have to clear them again, only this time they are in groups and I have to clear multip…

> I hover and wait for the cross to appear and click it.

If you’re manually dismissing every notification, consider going to your System Preferences and changing the notification type for those apps.

> all my notifications are still there for some reason and I have to clear them again, only this time they are in groups and I have to clear multiple groups.

Last I checked notifications over a week old are auto-cleared, so ignore the cleanup and only open Notification Centre when you need to check on a previous notification.

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