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Setting the bozo bit on Apple

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Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#121

Post by alanbernstein »

sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #72
RajT88 wrote: post #52

The bozo bit as described is how I thought about Sony for a long time. I had a different name for it, "The idiot engineer". That for all the amazing premium quality products Sony releases, every product has at least one extremely poorly thought out area. It was like there was some designer/engineer who was the son of the CEO or something, and got to work on every project.

My favorite example of this with Sony: the WH-1000XM series noise cancelling headphones are absolutely great and they would be the only headphones I ever use if only there was a way to mute the microphone from the headphones themselves. There's even a touch-sensitive panel on the earpiece and several control options you can pick to have available through it, but mute is not one of the options.

IMO the whole physical interface on these makes no sense. The microphone seems to be garbage, so why even include it? The touch panel literally never does what I want it to do, I wish they'd just replace it with buttons. The ONE tactile button on the device (aside from power) can only be used to change the noise-canceling mode, which I never do.

What I would do frequently is pair to another device, so it would be great if that one button could be used to unpair-and-enter-pairing-mode. Instead, I "repair" by connecting it to one device over bluetooth, and another device with a cable. It's a silly, awkward thing to do with my wireless headphones, but it's 100% reliable. Oh well.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#122

Post by SoftTalker »

kruuuder wrote: post #17

> How can such basic functionality be this incredibly broken? That's what I'm thinking almost every day when working with Apple devices. There is so, so much basic stuff broken on both macOS and iOS. I truly miss the days where Apple devices were a reliable tool, even a source of inspiration.

Yeah I got an iPhone for Christmas. I never thought Android was great but it's what I've used since I first had a smartphone.

It's hard for me to figure anything out on the iPhone. Nothing seems obvious or discoverable beyond the basic "tap an app tile to open it." Some of that is just differences from Android but the various gestures and the way settings are scattered all over the place just seems almost arbitrary. Maybe there is a rhyme and reason but I feel that if I wanted to learn that I'd need to sit down through a tutorial.

I once worked with a product manager who said "if users need training, you've failed" this was in the context of a consumer-oriented website but it seems to be a lesson lost on Apple.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#123

Post by Nomentatus »

smoldesu wrote: post #31
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so many people have only a phone now, so no reason to try to sync. Wait until the AR glasses come out. I pretty much guarantee that media syncing will be a huge deal, and Apple had better get their iCloud act together by then. iCloud is a shambles; and I say this as an Apple user for more than thirty years, and has pegged his career to Apple.

We've seen this before, it's a bit like the "no outside food or drink" policy at the movie theater. Apple (and Google, Microsoft, et. al) want to stop you from using your media so you're funneled into buying theirs. If people can easily play local files, it diminishes the value of a streaming/music management tool. Probably explains why Groove Music and Play Music failed, while Apple Music still has a surprisingly de…

I spent good money for a ScanDisk double-pronged device (and app) to get around this problem. It does and doesn't work - I have to have it plugged into the iphone to hear my music that I didn't buy on the itunes store. Now I'm paused, not buying more music until the govt steps in. All my digital purchases were from itunes over many years; but that was before I owned any Apple devices, and so everything could work smoothly together.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#124

Post by brigade »

10000truths wrote: post #64
kemayo wrote: post #32

> These are sent via WhatsApp so the audio recordings are mp4 files, which for some bizarre reason won't open in Music and instead open in QuickTime Player, despite definitely being audio files. .mp4 being associated with a video player seems reasonable, since it's almost always used for video. (I think the only difference between .mp4 and .m4a is the extension? It's just serving as a signal about which app should op…

> .mp4 being associated with a video player seems reasonable, since it's almost always used for video. (I think the only difference between .mp4 and .m4a is the extension? It's just serving as a signal about which app should open it, really.) mp4 is a container format, all it does is wrap some codecs and add metadata. There's no requirement that it contain video. The smart thing to do would be to inspect the mp4 and…

QuickTime Player is an audio player, why wouldn't it be?

However, the underlying complaint is that Music doesn't claim to be capable of handling mp4. Which is basically true; the "m4a" and "m4v" that Music does claim to support are restricted subsets of mp4.

Should Chrome handle files with a .heif extension if they contain AV1? That's pretty much the same question.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#125

Post by nathanvanfleet »

I've definitely noticed that since the release of Apple Music they have become increasing passive aggressive about local music collections. Losing cover images, somehow classifying songs from the same album/artist into many different artists or albums in lists, poorly syncing music playlists by creating new ones with a "1" appended to it leading my playlist of "workout" to duplicate to "workout 1" and then "workout 1 1" and then "workout 1 1 1" as I add or remove tracks.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#127

Post by birdyrooster »

If the author really believes this, I would only think so if he put money on the line and has PUTs on AAPL. This is just bitching for readership. Like I know Tesla is a shit company which is why I’ve been shorting it and making tons of money.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#128

Post by miohtama »

eptcyka wrote: post #40
kemayo wrote: post #32

> These are sent via WhatsApp so the audio recordings are mp4 files, which for some bizarre reason won't open in Music and instead open in QuickTime Player, despite definitely being audio files. .mp4 being associated with a video player seems reasonable, since it's almost always used for video. (I think the only difference between .mp4 and .m4a is the extension? It's just serving as a signal about which app should op…

Apple never really wanted to have the concept of files seep into iOS.

Is it discussed somewhere the ideology behind this? Users are too dumb for files? Pay extra for App Store apps just to open your own files? Prevent privacy? Security?

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#129

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

pflenker wrote: post #15

> iTunes used to be if not the, then certainly a flagship app for Apple. I have used iTunes off and on for around two decades and it has never been a great or even mediocre experience. It was always bad. The author is fondly remembering a time which might never have existed.

I instantly gave up on iTunes around 2006 or so when I spent three weeks ripping music from CD into my own file system, imported it into iTunes (because let's see what happens...) and it utterly and spectacularly trashed everything.

I haven't used it since. (Although it still starts automatically when I try to rip a CD using XLD.)

Now I use VLC for music on my phone and Vox on MacOS. Both are imperfect. FLAC isn't gapless in VLC, and Vox keeps trying to sell me things. But they work well enough to get some semblance of the job done.

The real problem is the conflict between utility and consumption. iTunes/Music were never there to conveniently manage and play audio (utility), but to lock users into a consumption silo. So importing and playing music from external sources has never been a design goal.

Vox has some similar issues, but isn't quite as bad. VLC is more of a utility app, which makes it more useful. (I suspect it has no problem playing an MP4 audio playlist.)

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#130

Post by fsckboy »

eptcyka wrote: post #40
kemayo wrote: post #32

> These are sent via WhatsApp so the audio recordings are mp4 files, which for some bizarre reason won't open in Music and instead open in QuickTime Player, despite definitely being audio files. .mp4 being associated with a video player seems reasonable, since it's almost always used for video. (I think the only difference between .mp4 and .m4a is the extension? It's just serving as a signal about which app should op…

Apple never really wanted to have the concept of files seep into iOS.

I think layered on that, it was more the case Apple really really really never wanted to have the concept of single song music files seep into iOS, especially as it was "share with your friends" device.

The revenue stream from the iTunes Store started in 2003, well preceding the iPhone.

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