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The Disappointing Surprise From Apple

amberweinberg.com

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Re: The Disappointing Surprise From Apple

#41

Post by meric »

jws wrote: post #8

We've found the only user in the world that used RSS in Mail! I feel a bond, as I was apparently the only user of RSS in Safari. (as confirmed by informal polling of friends and family). I moved my stuff into Google Reader and also went to Reeder on the Mac, but tried Newsify on the iOS devices and have to say that a custom newspaper is a much better experience than the hundred takes on master-detail drill down you f…

I had just finished implementing RSS on a website I was working for a client, making sure it worked for Safari, and that was yesterday.

=\

Re: The Disappointing Surprise From Apple

#42

Post by spinchange »

abruzzi wrote: post #3

I have no love for RSS, and even if I did, there are many third party apps that fill the niche, but I will say (as a regular Final Cut Pro user) welcome to the club. When Apple does their famous "cutting out the cruft" there are always users like us that are jilted because they depend on that cruft.

There's a big difference between eliminating features and effectively eliminating existing user data around those features. At the least provide an export path. This was careless implementation, not design elegance.

Re: The Disappointing Surprise From Apple

#43

Post by frankc »

abruzzi wrote: post #3

I have no love for RSS, and even if I did, there are many third party apps that fill the niche, but I will say (as a regular Final Cut Pro user) welcome to the club. When Apple does their famous "cutting out the cruft" there are always users like us that are jilted because they depend on that cruft.

So many people are missing the key point...it is never ok to to remove data without warning.

Re: The Disappointing Surprise From Apple

#44

Post by stcredzero »

javajosh wrote: post #25

In a word Amber, yes, of course you are right to feel violated. Apple removed your data without your consent. The fact that you were able to recover it is impressive, and far beyond the ordinary user. The fact that you are in the minority because you used a tool and technology (RSS) that is passe if not unpopular, should be no excuse to ignore this kind of treatment. That feed collection was your data, and Apple had…

> The fact that you are in the minority because you used a tool and technology (RSS) that is passe if not unpopular, should be no excuse to ignore this kind of treatment.

It seems like just yesterday my NASA rocket scientist friend was asking me what this new-fangled RSS thing was. I explained, and his response was, "So they just reimplemented USENET?"

Re: The Disappointing Surprise From Apple

#45

Post by sp332 »

JacksonGariety wrote: post #4

Feed readers are dead. Not at all feeds themselves, but the process of using a reader like mail to pull in feeds to a desktop app is going out the window. When consumers buy products, they should be able to look into the future. If you choose technology that is a bit behind the times, understand that you should be careful before upgrading, as old features are often cut from Apple products. This happened in every indu…

You know what still has RSS feed support? Windows Live Mail, the free MS email client. I don't think feeds will be dead anytime soon.

Re: The Disappointing Surprise From Apple

#46

Post by jsz0 »

javajosh wrote: post #19
bstar77 wrote: post #13

Apple removed rss from Mail because it was pretty crappy. Anyone interested in RSS should hit the appstore and snag one of many RSS readers that blows Apple's offering off the planet. When I discovered Reeder I knew my browsing habits would change forever, it's that much better.

Yes, but this misses the point: An OS upgrade hosed her data. Only the fact that she is (apparently) a small minority prevents this from being a big deal, a fact which itself sort of concerns me.

Not exactly. They removed the feature but left the data behind. I assume they did this on purpose so it could be salvaged by the user if needed. I suspect Apple Support could have helped or perhaps third party RSS readers could look for the data and automatically import it. The only thing they could have done differently is to maybe do a runounce in Mail that tells the user RSS is gone, point them to a support KB article, and maybe point the user to the Mac App Store to search for RSS readers.

Re: The Disappointing Surprise From Apple

#47

Post by wkearney99 »

shpoonj wrote: post #23
Tloewald wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone who finds RSS to be useless (having tried all kinds of ways to consume it) and knew support had been dropped from ML, I think you're being condescending. It's not like apple advertises unfeatures on its product page. I would have no problem if RSS support were hidden by default for people not obviously using it, but this is pretty stupid. apple has gone from shoving RSS down our throats (default c…

Whether it is stupid, even if we're just going to assume such a thing can be viewed objectively, is beside the point. If you think it is stupid, don't use it. If you want your money back because you bought something that you didn't properly research, why not ask for it instead of whining about it on your blog? And, on the point of Apple not advertising 'unfeatures' (I like that term), we, as consumers, make decisions…

So if you take your car in for service and a computer software upgrade is necessary and they remove a feature you use, that's OK?

Clearly Apple continues to show just they truly do not care about customers. It's Apple's way or GTFO. And along the way a legion of fanatics has been conned into accepting this abusive behavior. Here's hoping these nitwits aren't in charge of any other important decisions for anyone else.

Re: The Disappointing Surprise From Apple

#49

Post by aprendo »

Removing RSS functionality: A defensible decision, I think. Many excellent third-party RSS readers are available and this fits Apple’s overall theme of simplifying the OS: there are more system apps but each does less and only a very specific thing (Mail was split in Mail and Notes, iCal was split in Calendar and Reminders), iTunes being the big exception. RSS was never a good fit for Mail, why should Apple have to schlepp around that ballast for all eternity?

Removing user data: That is indefensible. There should be a painless way for users to export their RSS feeds on first launch (an OPML file would be minimum, better would be some even tighter solution that is not as painful and annoying as dealing with an OPML file.

(Yes, I know that technically Apple didn’t remove the data – but no one should be expected to conduct such a preposterous rescue mission for their data. This is also not meant as a criticism of her, it’s pretty clear that she is more or less ok with Apple removing the functionality, just not the data.)

Re: The Disappointing Surprise From Apple

#50

Post by shpoonj »

wkearney99 wrote: post #47
shpoonj wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether it is stupid, even if we're just going to assume such a thing can be viewed objectively, is beside the point. If you think it is stupid, don't use it. If you want your money back because you bought something that you didn't properly research, why not ask for it instead of whining about it on your blog? And, on the point of Apple not advertising 'unfeatures' (I like that term), we, as consumers, make decisions…

So if you take your car in for service and a computer software upgrade is necessary and they remove a feature you use, that's OK? Clearly Apple continues to show just they truly do not care about customers. It's Apple's way or GTFO. And along the way a legion of fanatics has been conned into accepting this abusive behavior. Here's hoping these nitwits aren't in charge of any other important decisions for anyone else.

Upgrading to Mountain Lion was necessary? I hardly see how.
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