He says he knew about this behavior, and he also explicitly said (on Twitter, can't be bothered looking for it) that he was not going to report bugs to Apple during the beta.
I guess Marco just prefers venting after the fact.
IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior
71–80 of 207 posts
Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior
#72I write several offline mapping apps, and this is totally throwing us for a loop. We're recommending our power users not upgrade to iOS 5. Users download gigabytes of maps to their cache directory, they don't want to eat their iCloud allotment with that, or their slow their iTunes sync. But they also don't want to have to download those maps again, or find themselves in the middle of the woods without the maps they d…
Isn't this what innovation is about? Finding ways of solving problems? Is forcing apps to make more efficient of their use of space such a bad thing? From what I see, your users have 3 choices: They can use your app and use up their iCloud allotment, they can use your app and not upgrade, or they can upgrade and find a mapping app that is more efficient in its use of space.
"Isn't this what innovation is about?"
Forgive the mini-rant on semantics, but that sounds like using community as QA to solve problems you didn’t have previously - that you created. Because if that’s the new definition, Facebook’s sure been innovating when it comes to privacy issues lately.
I see innovation being about the positive experiences users have with a new product (or feature), and seeing the directions they take things the original creator hadn’t imagined.
Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior
#73Apple's in a tight spot here - either they leave things as they are and piss off developers (and, by fiat, piss off users), or they have to start forcing users to more proactively manage their remaining space. One can probably easily imagine an interface for showing the user how much data a particular app is using and allow them to nuke the temporary stuff. It might even look beautiful. It might even be fun to use. B…
This general problem is a symptom of a major issue regarding the use of software that does not respect the freedom of its users. Every non-apple developer and user is required to bend to the will of the programmers who develop the proprietary iOS. Any negative choices or limitations imposed by Apple Inc. are virtually uncircumventable. On the other hand, if users and developers in a community are free to view, modify…
Your comment is completely salient and relevant here, but it's received down-votes because it proposes sacrificing profits (i.e., hand-holding, generally cloud-hosted software) for freedom, and Hacker News is simply too sophisticated for such idealism.
Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
This general problem is a symptom of a major issue regarding the use of software that does not respect the freedom of its users. Every non-apple developer and user is required to bend to the will of the programmers who develop the proprietary iOS. Any negative choices or limitations imposed by Apple Inc. are virtually uncircumventable. On the other hand, if users and developers in a community are free to view, modify…
For the vast majority of developers of iOS apps the specifics of how their data is stored and backed up do not matter. If they were not forced by Apple to adopt this set of constraints they would make decisions on a whim, it would lead to less freedom for user, because where there is uniformity, there is a power to abstract, there is a freedom to not micromanage. Circumventing design decicions is hard. Learning the s…
> there is a power to abstract, there is a freedom to not micromanage.
Oh, so is that like having freedom from porn now?
Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior
#75I develop Definition (http://definitionapp.com) and I store the database in the Caches directory as well, after receiving the email from Apple to move. This is bad news for me, the entire offline dictionary could be wiped out.
Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior
#76I write several offline mapping apps, and this is totally throwing us for a loop. We're recommending our power users not upgrade to iOS 5. Users download gigabytes of maps to their cache directory, they don't want to eat their iCloud allotment with that, or their slow their iTunes sync. But they also don't want to have to download those maps again, or find themselves in the middle of the woods without the maps they d…
Put it in Library/ (but not Library/Caches/). That's exactly the behavior you're looking for, I believe.
According to Marco's post (what this is a thread in response to), that is also backed up to iCloud and iTunes. Only Library/Caches/ and tmp/ are not.
Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior
#77I write several offline mapping apps, and this is totally throwing us for a loop. We're recommending our power users not upgrade to iOS 5. Users download gigabytes of maps to their cache directory, they don't want to eat their iCloud allotment with that, or their slow their iTunes sync. But they also don't want to have to download those maps again, or find themselves in the middle of the woods without the maps they d…
Put it in Library/ (but not Library/Caches/). That's exactly the behavior you're looking for, I believe.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work:
Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior
#78I write several offline mapping apps, and this is totally throwing us for a loop. We're recommending our power users not upgrade to iOS 5. Users download gigabytes of maps to their cache directory, they don't want to eat their iCloud allotment with that, or their slow their iTunes sync. But they also don't want to have to download those maps again, or find themselves in the middle of the woods without the maps they d…
Put it in Library/ (but not Library/Caches/). That's exactly the behavior you're looking for, I believe.
See Marco's post. Apple has made it clear that anything outside of Library/Caches/, tmp/, or the app bundle will be backed up to iCloud. I have personally witnessed this with Documents/ (as expected) and even Library/Application Support/ (which I hoped would be safe, but is not).
There is no current safe place to save local data that should not be backed up to iCloud.
Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
This general problem is a symptom of a major issue regarding the use of software that does not respect the freedom of its users. Every non-apple developer and user is required to bend to the will of the programmers who develop the proprietary iOS. Any negative choices or limitations imposed by Apple Inc. are virtually uncircumventable. On the other hand, if users and developers in a community are free to view, modify…
Your comment is completely salient and relevant here, but it's received down-votes because it proposes sacrificing profits (i.e., hand-holding, generally cloud-hosted software) for freedom, and Hacker News is simply too sophisticated for such idealism.
I find your usage of the word "freedom" here highly suspect.
This "freedom" is reserved for a very, very small class of people. Conversely, as much as you might not like it, an experience that hand-holds offers a kind of freedom for people who wouldn't otherwise be able to take advantage of modern hardware and/or software.
In theory, there doesn't have to be such a dichotomy between freedom and superior polish/UX. In practice, I feel strongly that there is. The popularity of such hand-holding, "freedom"-restricting devices is also highly suggestive.
Depending on where you sit, Android seems to bridge the gap, but as an Android user for years, I'm not completely convinced it's a superior experience.
I'm not unsympathetic, but I think the above view is detached from the reality of modern computing as the majority of people experience it.
Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
This general problem is a symptom of a major issue regarding the use of software that does not respect the freedom of its users. Every non-apple developer and user is required to bend to the will of the programmers who develop the proprietary iOS. Any negative choices or limitations imposed by Apple Inc. are virtually uncircumventable. On the other hand, if users and developers in a community are free to view, modify…
Your comment is completely salient and relevant here, but it's received down-votes because it proposes sacrificing profits (i.e., hand-holding, generally cloud-hosted software) for freedom, and Hacker News is simply too sophisticated for such idealism.
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