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IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

marco.org

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Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#131

Post by dagw »

modeless wrote: post #64
mynegation wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why there is no point in burning Apple's bandwidth, but there is a point in burning Instapaper servers' bandwidth? I don't care how Apple (or Marco) solves the problem, but I sure do not want to lose Instapaper articles at random.

It's not just Apple's bandwidth; it's users' iCloud storage, which costs users money.

Also don't forget that many people in world still (for whatever reason) don't have unlimited data plans. So if everything that get's downloaded also gets uploaded back to iCloud, then you've effectively halved their bandwidth quota.

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#132

Post by dextorious »

falling wrote: post #90
russellallen wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if you are going to slag someone off you should be bothered looking for the tweet you base your slander on...

Fair enough. I tried now but that was months ago and Twitter search is unhelpful. However, he's being asked by multiple people right now for the radar# and he's ignoring the questions. He just said he's known it for two weeks, which might have been too late for Apple to fix it anyway.

Yeah, one thing I don't understand is Marco had access to dev builds of iOS for months and iCloud dev access I presume. Why he only found about it now instead of doing something about it all this time?

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#133

Post by lukifer »

sudoman wrote: post #35
ender7 wrote: post #14

Apple'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…

> defective by design, free (as in speech), respect the freedom of its users

Is it just me, or has the free software community gotten so disciplined and precise with their talking points that it would make Karl Rove blush?

It comes down to this: different people want different things. Some people want Kramer's vision of building your own pizza, both for fun and to get exactly the pizza you want. Most people would rather have pizza driven to their house after a 1 minute phone call, and if they lose some freedom over the exact topping placement and the kind of crust used, they're quite fine with that.

Yeah, this was a really boneheaded platform decision, and I'll be very frustrated if Apple doesn't fix it. But you can't seriously tell me that open-source software doesn't sometimes make blunders or suffer from flawed usability. And the idea that I can theoretically crack open the source to my app (the Venn intersection of those with the time, ability, and willingness to do so are a speck, by the way) doesn't help me after the cache is already cleared while I'm sitting on the plane.

I don't care whether something is defective by design, or defective by lack of design: I care that it's defective, period.

The day that technology vendors start engaging in things like free speech suppression or non-consensual privacy invasion is the day I'm willing to think of computing as being a political issue. What we have here is nothing more than tech which you think sucks, and in this instance, you're very right. If it sucks enough, people will stop buying it, and/or the vendor will make it suck it less. But for god's sake, get off the the soapbox and go back to making things; everybody has exactly as much freedom as they want.

tl;dr: FOSS needs to get better at delivering pizzas instead of bitching about Domino's.

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#134

Post by peterclary »

What about offline web apps which are saved onto the home screen? Are they also "cleaned"? If we can't depend upon an offline web app to be there when offline then that would fundamentally defeat the purpose.

Of course, one could argue that the cleaning behaviour fundamentally defeats the purpose of a lot of apps, as already covered above (Instapaper, Offline Maps, etc.).

My iMac is packed up for building work, so I can't upgrade my iPad and check this out for myself. Sorry.

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#135

Post by lukeredpath »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #87
lukeredpath wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't think there is an issue with allowing Instapaper content to get backed up to iCloud here. The analogy of a user created archive is a good one. If people don't want the benefit of having their Instapaper content transfers across their devices automatically (and I do think this is a good feature) then they are free to disable iCloud backup for Instapaper in Settings.

That's not entirely true. You can disable iCloud syncing for individual Apple apps, but 3rd party apps are all-or-nothing. You can't disable iCloud syncing for a single 3rd party app.

Yes, you can disable iCloud backup on a per app basis.

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#136

Post by dlss »

lukifer wrote: post #133
sudoman wrote: post #35

Earlier 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…

> defective by design, free (as in speech), respect the freedom of its users Is it just me, or has the free software community gotten so disciplined and precise with their talking points that it would make Karl Rove blush? It comes down to this: different people want different things. Some people want Kramer's vision of building your own pizza, both for fun and to get exactly the pizza you want. Most people would rat…

> I don't care whether something is defective by design, or defective by lack of design: I care that it's defective, period.

Interesting. As an engineer, I very much care about causes. Especially systematic ones. They allow me to better reason about the kinds of problems my system is likely to have, and to proactively mitigate them.

I believe that sudoman's tl;dr is something like "If Domino's executives ate at Domino's, the pizza would taste better", which is to say that (as for most iOS APIs), Apple's own software almost certainly uses different APIs than what they force developer apps to use.

Even if you don't find comments like that interesting, I do. Your comment however (and the other replies to sudoman) miss the point entirely, and instead of discussing why the Domino's executives don't eat Domino's pizza, you spend your time arguing the importance of executives.

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#137

Post by muuh-gnu »

sudoman wrote: post #35
ender7 wrote: post #14

Apple'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…

> If we were talking about free software, users would have control of their data; not some distant programmers

Example Gnome3, which is free software, even a officially sanctioned GNU project. Overnight, a few key people decide to abandon the traditional desktop metaphor, against the will of a majority of their users and to the detriment of the whole linux desktop. The users hated it and are still hating it, but nobody has the ressources to modify it. Nobody has even the ressources to keep Gnome2 alive, let alone fork Gnome3.

Yes, in theory users could make only those changes they want, but only in theory. In practice, if a significantly influential player says that Gnome2 is gone, Gnome2 is gone. Even if iOS was free software, if Apple decided to make a change, they would be still big enough to force a majority of users to accept their way.

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#138

Post by danssig »

muuh-gnu wrote: post #137
sudoman wrote: post #35

Earlier 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…

> If we were talking about free software, users would have control of their data; not some distant programmers Example Gnome3, which is free software, even a officially sanctioned GNU project. Overnight, a few key people decide to abandon the traditional desktop metaphor, against the will of a majority of their users and to the detriment of the whole linux desktop. The users hated it and are still hating it, but nobo…

Wonderful comment. This is one reason I always laughed at the argument "yea, but... we have all the source code!". Great, so the solution is we pay to maintain it? How is this free again?

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#139

Post by WiseWeasel »

lukeredpath wrote: post #135
WiseWeasel wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not entirely true. You can disable iCloud syncing for individual Apple apps, but 3rd party apps are all-or-nothing. You can't disable iCloud syncing for a single 3rd party app.

Yes, you can disable iCloud backup on a per app basis.

Weird. On my roommate's 3GS upgraded to iOS 5.0 (I've not upgraded mine yet as my 4S is arriving today), I did not see the screen shown in the screenshot linked in the post above in the Settings/iCloud section. There were toggles for all the Apple apps, but 3rd party apps seemed to only be able to be toggled all at once, with a toggle called "Applications and Documents" or something of the sort. How do you do it?

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#140

Post by seabee »

danssig wrote: post #138
muuh-gnu wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we were talking about free software, users would have control of their data; not some distant programmers Example Gnome3, which is free software, even a officially sanctioned GNU project. Overnight, a few key people decide to abandon the traditional desktop metaphor, against the will of a majority of their users and to the detriment of the whole linux desktop. The users hated it and are still hating it, but nobo…

Wonderful comment. This is one reason I always laughed at the argument "yea, but... we have all the source code!". Great, so the solution is we pay to maintain it? How is this free again?

The unsaid thing about freedoms is you cannot exercise them unless you have the means to do so. If you don't have that, the only value freedoms afford you is aspirational.

Given that the potential to do something is worth a whole lot less than the activity itself, it's easy to see why FOSS is in is current state and will remain that way for a long time.

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