Am I An Outlier, Or Are Apple Products No Longer Easy To Use? | John Battelle’s Search BlogJohn Battelle’s Search Blog

A genius “rant” about Apple usability – I’m glad someone has actually said it. It’s been the elephant in the room for a couple of years. He’s certainly not an outlier! I have the same issues with iPhoto (really what’s the point?), iTunes (another UI, really?) and iOS (I am not fat fingered).

Quick excerpts below but you really need to go read the full article by  John Battelle here.

… the fact that Apple doesn’t respond in its forums about this (or any) issue? Ridonkulous.

iTunes

“… just the fact that there’s a market for something like Rinse kind of makes my point.

Without going into detail, my little rant about Calendar, iPhoto, Address Book, et al goes for iTunes as well. I even bought a piece of software to try to fix iTunes myriad issues (Rinse). I can’t figure out whether or not Rinse has fixed anything, to be honest, and so far, all it’s managed to do is marry the wrong album art to about 100 or so songs which previously didn’t have any imagery. Which is kind of funny, but a tad annoying. And just the fact that there’s a market for something like Rinse kind of makes my point.

iOS

“Seriously, how can an adult finger ever touch that little search icon without either hitting the “A” or the “+”????

Have you ever done a search in your iPhone contacts? You need the fingers of a poorly fed six-year-old to activate that search function. No, really, I must waste four or five minutes a day trying to make that damn thing work.

 

via Am I An Outlier, Or Are Apple Products No Longer Easy To Use? | John Battelle’s Search BlogJohn Battelle’s Search Blog.

Hey, Apple and Google: Stop trying to wolf the whole mobile pie • The Register

“Apple is a terrible Google, which is a terrible Amazon, which is a terrible Apple.”

It’s become a truism that the way to win in mobile is with an end-to-end, hardware-to-software-to-cloud strategy. I just wish this were as good for consumers as it seems to be for vendors. If I could get any wish fulfilled for 2013, it would be to have Apple and Google, in particular, go back to doing what they do best – rather than doing “all the things” in an attempt to squeeze out maximum value from a captive consumer.
via Hey, Apple and Google: Stop trying to wolf the whole mobile pie • The Register.

New services bypass Apple DRM to allow pirated iOS app installs without jailbreaking on iPhone, iPad – The Next Web

“If you’re looking to steal apps from developers — lets not kid ourselves about what’s happening here — it is now easier than ever to do so.”

Late last year, the closure of the uber-popular Installous marked the end of a promiscuous era in iOS app piracy.

Now, several new services are on the rise that are filling the gap and offering easy installation of pirated apps, even on devices that have not been jailbroken.Updated with statement from Zeusmos’ developer below.The two that have risen to the forefront are Zeusmos and Kuaiyong. While the former has been around for a few months, it has gained significant steam since the exit of Installous. The latter has appeared seemingly from nowhere over the past couple of weeks.Both of these services are dangerous for app developers because they offer simple, one-tap installs of pirated apps and do not require that devices have been jailbroken in order to do so. This is an enormous problem, as it opens up the arena for their use from the relatively small fraction of users with jailbroken devices — as was the case with Installous — to any unscrupulous users of iPhones and iPads.

If you’re looking to steal apps from developers — lets not kid ourselves about what’s happening here — it is now easier than ever to do so.

via New services bypass Apple DRM to allow pirated iOS app installs without jailbreaking on iPhone, iPad – The Next Web.

Apple Moves Closer to Making TV Set – WSJ.com

If this is true should I buy the first release or wait for the ‘S’ version?

Apple Inc. is working with component suppliers in Asia to test several designs for television sets, people familiar with the situation said, suggesting that the company is moving closer to expanding its offerings for the living room.

via Apple Moves Closer to Making TV Set – WSJ.com.

Messages chatroom window won’t go away: Apple Support Communities

I’ve had an annoying chatroom that opened every time I started messages despite not using it in months. I unchecked the autojoin option in the chat window and closed it, checked the autojoin and closed it but it always came back. It turns out that the autojoin checkbox in the chat window doesn’t seem to b econnected to anything and you have to do it via an obscure menu.

File > Go to Chat Room > Deselect “auto join” in the chat room list window.

via chatroom window won’t go away: Apple Support Communities.

Belkin WeMo Switch – Apple Store (UK)

Okay I totally want to upgrade our remote lights to iPhone remote lights. #firstworldproblems

The Belkin WeMo Switch and the free WeMo app work together to let you turn electronics on or off from your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch wherever you are. No matter if it’s a lamp, a fan, or a stereo, you can activate it or put it on a schedule. WeMo uses your home Wi-Fi network, and also operates over mobile Internet – so you can control things even when you’re travelling. WeMo is completely modular, allowing you to control as much or as little of your house as you like. All it requires is that your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch is running iOS 5 or later.

via Belkin WeMo Switch – Apple Store (UK).

iTunes store and gamed reviews

There has been a lot said in the press recently about bad reviews – the NYT recently brought to the attention of Google that one company decormyeyes was actively encouraging bad reviews to gain search engine rankings.

Other sites have been accused of allowing poor reviews which may have a negative effect on their businesses and in fact tripadvisor is being sued over it.

Meanwhile over on the iTunes store they’ve had problems in the past and removed apps from a developer found to be abusing the ratings and review system. Still though it persists.

Does anyone else think it’s suspicious that Union17 manages to review one app ***** (5 star) and NOW TOTALLY RELIABLE! PERFECT!! and writing lots of overly positive (and also in caps with exclamation points) yet at the same time manages to review seven other similar apps all * (1 star) managing to slate them, promote the first app and it’s supposed features int he review and all within a couple of days…
Then there’s Type25 who clearly does work for the developer as any of their apps reviewed are great and any others are poor.

I reckon another developer seems to be trying to game the iTunes store review system which really means you can’t trust the reviews on there until they find a way of preventing developers reviewing on the site.

Apple Adverts have definitely improved with time

Okay so everyone is talking about the iPhone4 FaceTime commercials and the Matt Damon look-a-like at the moment but by far my favourite adverts are still for actual Macintosh computers.

I still own a G4 Cube and it is beautiful if not especially well powered now. It’s great as an iTunes media share though as it’s pretty enough to have out on display. The commercials though were special if only for the awful song choices…

The other great advert was for the 20th anniversary Mac. It didn’t tell you anything about the processor, RAM or any of that other stuff you might want to know about a PC, no it concentrated on the fact it was the most beautiful thing Apple had ever produced!

Oh and of course let’s not forget Kevin Costner or the college guy in his boxers

iPhone 4 price comparison

Okay so finally Vodafone have released pricing for the UK iPhone 4 release. So that means Orange and o2 can be compared with the tariffs for Vodafone now. Three haven’t yet released their pricing strategy for the iPhone but given their 3G network coverage they shoudl be one to watch.

Usual disclaimers about checking pricing is correct before purchasing etc. Prices correct at time of publishing etc etc…
I’ve only compared the lowest two tariffs for each as to be honest I’m not interested in the more expensive tariffs as I hardly use my call or text allowance as it is.

iPhone comparison

Apple Mail grrr

According to Apple – Use only this server
Indicate whether to use only the specified outgoing mail server to send messages, or use any available server. When the checkbox is not selected, Mail tries to find another available server to send messages if your specified, trusted server is unavailable.

Sadly this is not the case…

I have this box checked and still Apple Mail sends my mail from my gmail account instead of my work Exchange account – what gives?