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If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

macworld.com

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Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#281

Post by jazzyjackson »

gonehome wrote: post #261
jazzyjackson wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was really excited for a stereo pair of homepods but have similar issues and worse - even tho they still appear as grouped, music will often only happen on one or the other. If I was playing music from the phone, and then later ask siri to play something, it will play different music on each speaker - in a stereo pair! plus I have to shout for them to hear my command over the music, very bad experience, back to eba…

Another annoying issue is with timers. When cooking we'll tell the one in the kitchen to set a timer. Then we'll ask what time is left. If another one hears the question it yells "there are no timers set" so we have to whisper to the closer one. Another thing that to me suggests nobody at Apple is really using these things.

what was simultaneously aggravating and hilarious was when trying to set up a stereo pair of Alexas, trying to whisper to one, and Alexa whispered right back!

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#282

Post by jjice »

I use MacOS for work - I think it's a fine OS. Biggest thing for me is that it's UNIX based.

I wouldn't use a MacBook myself though. They certainly are damn fine machines for the price (M1), but I really don't like MacOS having a bunch of stuff I don't need, like Garage Band. I know Windows has a ton of bloat as well, and MacOS's bloat is more useful, generally speaking. It's not for most people, but any popular user friendly Linux distro like Ubuntu has little bloat. Unfortunately, those aren't as user friendly as MacOS or Windows (I assume this will garner some opposing opinions).

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#283

Post by warning26 »

jjice wrote: post #282

I use MacOS for work - I think it's a fine OS. Biggest thing for me is that it's UNIX based. I wouldn't use a MacBook myself though. They certainly are damn fine machines for the price (M1), but I really don't like MacOS having a bunch of stuff I don't need, like Garage Band. I know Windows has a ton of bloat as well, and MacOS's bloat is more useful, generally speaking. It's not for most people, but any popular user…

I mean, you can uninstall Garageband. If you do a clean MacOS install, Garageband isn't even included (you have to download it separately).

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#284

Post by doubled112 »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #162
gommm wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the worst part is that their software division used to be great. Aperture was really good when it came out, Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro were great. Eveh talking about iwork suite, numbers and page used to be better than they are now. Even Quicktime regressed. It's frankly both puzzling and saddening how much Apple has lost in term of QA, user interface and vision in the last 10 years. I always feel that Tim Cook doe…

>Tim Cook doesn't have a clue about what made Apple special and is slowly destroying it by not making sure to keep those qualities Well their shares have never been higher so as long as that's the metric by which a CEO's performance is judged then you can forget about Apple caring about SW QA and other such "nonsense". Also, before Jobs passed away, Cook was Apple's supply chain mastermind so it makes sense his stren…

> notifications on the new MBP can get hidden behind the notch; WTF, how did this pass QA?!

Developer and QA team tester were using older MBPs? So it worked on their machines?

Rendered fine in the automated test?

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#285

Post by Philadelphia »

jjice wrote: post #274
makecheck wrote: post #204

While this article focused primarily on things being left unmaintained, etc. there is also a huge problem with things being touched for no reason and making them worse . When handed what must be a mountain of bugs and unfinished items, why the hell did they prioritize things like breaking notifications and Safari tabs, for instance? They’re in a position where engineering resources desperately need to be closing gaps…

This is something so many big companies do, and I hate it. Every 6 months it seems Spotify has to change their UI and make it harder to find what I want. Just make a decent UI and stick to it. I don't understand why there are redesigns over and over and over. My assumption is that it keeps people employed, even if they aren't necessarily needed. It at least takes away from more important issues being taken care of.

Twitter has been so bad with this lately. It feels like the app is different in some irritating and pointless way every time I open it.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#286

Post by freediver »

Jyaif wrote: post #253
freediver wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best means different thing to different people. I have opted to define exactly what best means to me, so that we can get comments like yours to further the discussion.

By your standards Lynx is the best browser.

On Linux it may be for some, but I was talking about Mac, and on macOS I want a browser app that works and looks in a native way.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#287

Post by drewg123 »

noneeeed wrote: post #231
makecheck wrote: post #204

While this article focused primarily on things being left unmaintained, etc. there is also a huge problem with things being touched for no reason and making them worse . When handed what must be a mountain of bugs and unfinished items, why the hell did they prioritize things like breaking notifications and Safari tabs, for instance? They’re in a position where engineering resources desperately need to be closing gaps…

The current UX of notifications is terrible . After months of using it I still don't understand the mental model. A notification comes up, I hover and wait for the cross to appear and click it. But then some time later I unlock my machine or something happens and apparantly all my notifications are still there for some reason and I have to clear them again, only this time they are in groups and I have to clear multip…

I wish there was some way to look at the last N notifications, see what apps generated them, etc.

My biggest pet peeve right now is that my iPhone bongs when charging. Not when the charger is plugged or unplugged (its a different sound). It seems to happen when the charge passes 20% and then again when it passes 80%. But there is never a notification on screen, just a sound. Googling for this is impossible, since you wind up with a million questions about the sound the phone makes when a charger is plugged in.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#288

Post by freediver »

fermentation wrote: post #275
freediver wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a Mac, Safari is the best browser (as defined by being fast, battery efficient and native app) by a far margin compared to other mainstream choices, only matched by the Orion browser (but I may be biased).

Does a non-native browser exist?

Yes - Chrome, Brave, Edge, Firefox... all use non-native UI components in their macOS apps (even iOS), which makes them look and feel out of place on a Mac.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#289

Post by CamperBob2 »

notpachet wrote: post #258
nikanj wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because someone needs to able to point at Thing and say they took iniative in implementing it, for career reasons

I worked with a developer at whose main claim to fame was that she'd deleted more features than she'd added. We need more people like her.

What? No. Not if people used those features and found them valuable.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#290

Post by onemoresoop »

jaywalk wrote: post #249
onemoresoop wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is horrible in this regard. And what's worse is that the users seem not to care such that this behavior proliferates. I have a windows machine that I take it offline and want it running at all times. No updates possible, Wi-Fi is turned of right? Wrong, windows does restart machine and enables Wi-Fi. It pisses me to no end how little control I have of this machine

Sounds like you're just using the basic toggle switch to "disable" Wi-Fi when that's not really the purpose of the switch. If you actually want the Wi-Fi disabled, you have to do it right. Do it in the UEFI menu, or disable it in Device Manager if that option isn't available. It won't get re-enabled if you do it right.

You're absolutely right if I wanted to disable Wi-Fi permanently. The problem is that I want it enabled at times without rebooting the system.
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