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Setting the bozo bit on Apple

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Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#151

Post by chongli »

jacobr1 wrote: post #149
chongli wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which in hindsight seems extremely naïve. Files are just too damn useful a concept. Their main rival, databases, have a bunch of peculiarities that limit their generality. When people want to share information any longer than a paragraph or two, they send a file. You can’t beat files!

I think the model they'd prefer are references. URIs to cloud resources.

That's what cloud providers want. I think users don't care and prefer whatever is the simplest and most reliable method. Cloud resources disappear all the time which tends to make a lot of users upset.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#152

Post by formerly_proven »

rmckayfleming wrote: post #146
formerly_proven wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda like random/automatic autoplay but because Apple Music only seems to buffer the next 0.002 seconds of music any interruption of network service tends to just ... stop playback. And when you manually start it again, it switches to a "random autoplay, but from downloaded songs only" mode and you have to futz around to get back to the "random autoplay from all music" mode by clearing the queue with that one-song…

Interesting you say that about the Airpods. In my experience I've found that Airpods work extremely well so long as they're only paired with your Apple devices. Once I paired them to my PC I started having issues where they'd drop from my iPhone randomly in the middle of playback. After unpairing them from the PC altogether the problems went away.

That's because you didn't disconnect them (manually) from the PC, both Windows and Linux will grab the airpods when something tries to play audio, even if that "playing audio" is technically silent.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#153

Post by apozem »

zokier wrote: post #135
jchw wrote: post #93

I like this concept of a "bozo bit" and have to agree, the arbitrary difficulty of making Apple software do things slightly outside the happy path can border on insanity, like that "Malcom in the Middle" Fixing the Lightbulb clip/GIF that goes around from time to time. I would like to extend this concept. I do not, in fact, have the bozo bit set for my Linux desktop setup. I do, however, have the "fields of broken gl…

I think contrasting with Linux is indeed interesting. Apple deserves also more flak for this because they so long were running with lines like "it just works" (old favorite of Jobs), and using "quality" as marketing point; throwing stones in glass houses I say. At least on Linux it feels more acknowledged that stuff is complicated and occasionally break, instead of living in some weird kafkaesque experience where you…

My brother was just complaining to me about Apple Notes. He finds it maddening when he takes a note on his iPad, switches to his phone, opens Notes and it's not there. No loading spinner, no indication that something went wrong, no message that it will be there, nothing.

When things go wrong, it is exactly as you say- weird and infuriating.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#154

Post by Nevermark »

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 happily used iTunes to manage a library and playlists for many years. And then it became a slog and I gave up.

iTunes/Music has always been an unusual app, but there were work flows (play flows?) whose practicality has come and gone.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#155

Post by codemac »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #9

Sync'ing from laptop to devices, via anything but iCloud, has gotten so much worse than it used to be. It used to be pretty good -- for it's time anyway. The ecology just isn't built for actual owned media anymore. And so many people have only a phone now, so no reason to try to sync. I think this is probably true on Android too. I don't know about the Watch, or what the documented ways are to get media files on it.…

Unfortunately, it is also true for android. Especially with the google drive "audit" requirement for software to access your files in google drive, it's actually much worse than iOS.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#156

Post by lowbloodsugar »

Used:

1. Non apple music format, indeed one typically used for video

2. Non apple messenger service.

3. Tried to get those to work with the apple application primarily designed to support purchase and playback of corporate media.

Didn't have a great experience. We are all shocked.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#157

Post by smoldesu »

taylodl wrote: post #140
smoldesu wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple never said they were switching the iPhone to USB-C, unless I missed something. Do you have a source for that?

In 2014 Apple said they would use the Lightning adapter for at least 10 years. Meanwhile they've adopted USB-C across their product line. Apple famously never announces future product plans but I think it's pretty easy to read the tea leaves with regards to what they were going to do.

Well, now there are no tea leaves to read. If Apple doesn't want to be transparent or work with their community, these are the kinds of laws we'll be forced to pass. They have to be responsible with their power, as the single largest private company in the world. We have to hold them accountable.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#158

Post by astrange »

matwood wrote: post #139
lapcat wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have used iTunes — consistently — for around two decades, and while I agree that iTunes was mediocre, Music app is soooooo much worse. It's total crap. Embarrassingly bad. I would happily trade Music app to get iTunes back again.

What's funny is that when they announced iTunes was going away, people cheered because they hated the kitchen sink approach that iTunes had become. I think a lot of the Music.app issues stem from it being what looks like a SwiftUI/Catalyst app more than anything else.

Does it? Music.app not only looks like iTunes but is iTunes. Though I guess it depends on which tab you're in.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#159

Post by astrange »

gumby wrote: post #145

Apple still sucks less, but years of internal disincentives of some sort have let the competition make progress. They need a come to $DIETY moment and to do a "snow leopard" across the board. What they really need is to go back to the focus on functionality and dependability that made the original mac such a success. But even a periodic "snow leopard" effort would be much better than what we have today. (For those wh…

I claim that new feature work is actually less likely to annoy you than "reliability and performance" work, and is also less likely to introduce bugs. Performance work is perfectly capable of introducing bugs and going back and opening up old project is very likely to.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#160

Post by astrange »

jbverschoor wrote: post #143

I read/heard something last week like "you won't get recognized for making things work properly (aka bugfixes, etc, etc).. only for bigger things" (within apple/google). That's exactly where the problem lies.

Their performance review systems have nothing in common except that they exist, so that's kind of silly.

Generally doing random old bugfixing is low impact, but also it's likely to break things worse instead of make them better. Especially when binary compatibility comes up.

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