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Setting the bozo bit on Apple

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Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#171

Post by thewebcount »

hot_gril wrote: post #74
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.…

Android in the past was surprisingly terrible at copying data to/from PCs. Anyone saying it works great is using some third-party tool that requires extra setup, or they aren't syncing a lot of stuff (media libraries, and iTunes used to also sync email accounts and some other settings). Aside from the lack of a proper syncing tool like iTunes, the basic Android File Transfer was super unreliable, often failing random…

> They added AirDrop specifically for this, and... Like 90% of the time I don't see my other device, or the transfer fails. I don't even bother anymore.

Oh god! This bugs me so much. I don't understand why it's so hard to get this right. I'm sure it is, but why?

I know that if one of my devices switches from our 5GHz to our 2.4GHz network this can happen, but even when they're on the same network, it happens sometimes. (And why do my devices keep trying to force themselves off of the 5GHz network? WTF?)

And I get that it's called "Airdrop", but I'd really like it to work over ethernet, too, since that's a lot faster!

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#172

Post by gumby »

astrange wrote: post #159
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.

Apple does embrace your approach: they'd rather re-implement than fix. I think the example cited by the post (Apple Music) and more generally the experience of the last 15 years of Apple suggests that your this is wrong, at least for Apple.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#173

Post by kitschpatrol »

orev wrote: post #75

My biggest issue right now is that the iOS Music app has been almost completely hobbled by Apple Music (the service). I just want an app I can use to play my existing media files, but it’s always pushing you to subscribe to the service. Especially annoying is that they have hidden the previously free access to streaming terrestrial radio stations (not the same thing as the Apple Radio subscription). You can only acce…

If you're looking to manage and play local media, Swinsian (http://swinsian.com) is a nice native app that comes extremely close to the peak iTunes experience of yore.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#174

Post by ASalazarMX »

apozem wrote: post #153
zokier wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Excuse, we call those "Minimalist errors".

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#176

Post by [deleted] »

thewebcount wrote: post #171
hot_gril wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android in the past was surprisingly terrible at copying data to/from PCs. Anyone saying it works great is using some third-party tool that requires extra setup, or they aren't syncing a lot of stuff (media libraries, and iTunes used to also sync email accounts and some other settings). Aside from the lack of a proper syncing tool like iTunes, the basic Android File Transfer was super unreliable, often failing random…

> They added AirDrop specifically for this, and... Like 90% of the time I don't see my other device, or the transfer fails. I don't even bother anymore. Oh god! This bugs me so much. I don't understand why it's so hard to get this right. I'm sure it is, but why? I know that if one of my devices switches from our 5GHz to our 2.4GHz network this can happen, but even when they're on the same network, it happens sometime…

[deleted]

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#177

Post by hot_gril »

thewebcount wrote: post #171
hot_gril wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android in the past was surprisingly terrible at copying data to/from PCs. Anyone saying it works great is using some third-party tool that requires extra setup, or they aren't syncing a lot of stuff (media libraries, and iTunes used to also sync email accounts and some other settings). Aside from the lack of a proper syncing tool like iTunes, the basic Android File Transfer was super unreliable, often failing random…

> They added AirDrop specifically for this, and... Like 90% of the time I don't see my other device, or the transfer fails. I don't even bother anymore. Oh god! This bugs me so much. I don't understand why it's so hard to get this right. I'm sure it is, but why? I know that if one of my devices switches from our 5GHz to our 2.4GHz network this can happen, but even when they're on the same network, it happens sometime…

I read that AirDrop uses Bluetooth to make machines handshake then transfers the actual data over a p2p wifi network. But I vaguely remember it also working over existing networks, even with ethernet, which may have been in an older version. Either way, it's complicated and thus unreliable. I'm guessing Bluetooth is the weakest link there, cause I have a hard time even pairing speakers with that crap.

Check if BT is enabled on both your phones.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#178

Post by moistly »

matwood wrote: post #147
SoftTalker wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

What you're used to matters unless you're willing to put in some effort to learn the differences. I used (and developed for both) iPhones for years, then Android, then back to iPhone. During my Android time I got my wife an Android phone to use, and she tried for a couple days then said basically what you said. She had no idea how anything worked, and if she did take the time to figure it out, what is she really gain…

A large part of the problem is that most of the touch device UI is “discoverable.” There is no indication-or reason to believe—that a long press might do something different than a tap, or that a swipe might reveal an option (or that a swipe in the other direction will reveal a different option), etc etc. it is all extremely opaque, not entirely consistent between applications, and completely different between OSes.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#179

Post by moistly »

techdragon wrote: post #99
stewx wrote: post #60

Apple's legendary "amazing UX" is really bad a lot of the time.

I’m aware I’m invoking the cliche here, but it’s my genuine honest opinion that it’s been going downhill since a Steve Jobs died. There’s a famous quote from him about success and product focus, and it seems pretty obvious that first they tried using Ive as a product guy substitute (or put him forward as one), then they gave up entirely. Steve used his own stuff and didn’t hesitate to demand it meet his quality expec…

IMO it’s because Tim Cook isn’t an asshole, and Steve Jobs was. If you brought something substandard to Jobs, you’d regret it with every fibre of your being. I simply can’t imagine Cook berating anyone so severely that they’re reduced to a crying puddle of shame and self-loathing.

Jobs was a shitty boss, but by god he got what he wanted.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#180

Post by the_third_wave »

asutekku wrote: post #79
10000truths wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> .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…

i've never seen mp4 containing anything else than video so it's reasonable assume they would contain video most of the time and thus have a video player as the default app.

Peertube can create audio-only mp4 files by setting the video resolution to 0 [1]. I use this to create audio-only versions of lecture videos for use on the road etc - which is why I made this feature and submitted the PR.

[1] https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/pull/2213

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