Month: June 2016

For as conceptually consistent a company as Apple wants us to believe it is, it sure can fall into turmoil sometimes.  And apparently that turmoil started when Steve Jobs left and Apple hasn’t recovered until now.

If you’re a Stiff and don’t believe that Apple sank into sludge, just look at how little purpose went into iOS 7-9.  And now look at iOS 10.  See the difference?  iOS 10 looks more complete then iOS 7-9 (and when a version of iOS looks more complete than 3 other versions that looked basically the same, you got a problem).

If you’re the other type of Stiff and don’t believe Apple has recovered, check out this post by Above Avalon.  The post details Apple’s perceived product model, and says that Apple now looks to be creating something called the Apple Experience—

Wait what?  Wasn’t it already aiming for that?  Wasn’t the point of Apple products to adapt to the user?  Looking at the product layout images on the article, we see some familiar models:  The Mac as the center, then each product supporting the other equally in a stool formation, then the phone as the center…

But then there’s this really odd self-adapting formation, where as the user places more or less importance on a particular product, the supports to other products get stronger or weaker.

…But shouldn’t Apple have been aiming for that anyway?  A product model that adapts to the user sounds like a very Apple way of dealing with things…

Um, well…Apple didn’t do it before.  So there was no experience.  “Experience” in quotes.  As in, in business terms, you couldn’t call it an “experience”…oh forget it.  They’re making an experience now.  They’re “Apple” now.  Before, they were “That company that looks like Apple but only had one guy running things that everyone believed was Apple and thought he was making an experience but now we know that he wasn’t”.  And then during iOS 7-9 (and maybe 6), they were “That company that looks like Apple but was actually a manifestation of the confusion between ‘UX/UI Simplicity’ and ‘Visual Simplicity’.

At least that’s what the article implies to me.  If you want to tag it as “Apple was doing Apple by waiting and doing the necessary evil of pissing everyone off and ruining the world”, be my guest.

In fact here’s several reactions to this article (with no particular theme):

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-Steve Jobs was an idiot and wasn’t actually designing an experience?!

-Why would you do any other formation other than the self-adapting one?  That’s the most Apple!

-So Apple DID suck, but now we’re all safe!

-Apple still sucks because they don’t know what they’re doing!!

-The Apple Watch or iWatch or Watch or whatever can’t fit into the self-adapting one because it’s slow as hell and I haven’t seen watchOS 3 yet!

-WINDOWS/ANDROID/UBUNTU/LINUX/XIAO MI/ANYTHING-ELSE IS BETTER APPLE SUCKS.

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Pick your favorite.

But what I personally think, based on what Above Avalon said, is that we’re getting stock Apple now (no “stock Android” reference intended).  Because stock Apple obviously didn’t exist when Steve was alive.  Or at any other point other than now.

Or maybe this was just Apple Inc. and the cult is an illusion and anything Apple does is just your average company behavior.  Yeah, say that to an Apple fan and see how far you get.

 

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Before I end this post, I want to make a note:  There’s been some confusion over whether Apple is a functionally divided company or not.  I still find references to “Apple’s functionally divided system”, but everyone I talk to gives good reasons as to why Apple can’t be functionally divided, and I wonder.  But this “self-adapting product model” seems to require the mindset of “Every product needs to do everything so the user can have any of our products and still be able to use them as if they had any other combination of products”, which implies a functionally divided company so every product receives the same level of care as any other.  The reason why the products appear lopsided right now is because they appear to have just figured this out.  My diagnosis of the interval between when Steve died and now, is that after he died, Apple fell into a fight between Jony (who was appointed iOS software design lead), and everyone else.  The fight then devolved into confusion as people temporarily lost sight of what Apple was aiming for.  This lasted through iOS 8 and 9.  And now, they finally got their feet back under them and are coming back with iOS 10.

That’s my theory.

[This post is mostly about iOS…because for some reason Apple focused on it.  And it, FOCUSED, on it.  Read on.]

 

Um…the title basically says it all.  Besides some, yes, UI and user experience improvements that make everything a whole lot better…why did it take so long for any of this to happen?  There’s so much stuff here, artificial intelligence, more opening up, watchOS actually living up to what company it came from…

And yes, ACTUALL artificial intelligence, not just followup questions for Siri or tracking what apps you use when.

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The User Interface/Experience

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Word of advice:  Tell your fans you’re working on stuff like this, rather than just going “Oh, incremental update!  We’re Apple and we’re innovative but we have our head stuck in a bucket!”

 

The UI is now a sort of “translucent plastic card” model, so almost everything works off of looking like a bunch of cards that you slide around.  It feels like Google’s material design, but not exactly restricted to physical/scaling movements.  It’s also smoother…I guess…

Sorry.  I’m a little annoyed.  iOS 7-9 had nothing except people complaining that Jony had no idea what he was doing, and apparently he was being some sort of Godzilla and not allowing anything to change or whatever, and now suddenly it’s UX and AI and APPLE.  I’m getting ahead of myself, but I don’t really care.  Oh, Jony, what the hell did you do?  Did you get fired?  I guess not, since it didn’t make the news.  My dad had already assumed that Apple had completely lost it.  Did Apple plan this?  I’ll shut up now.

 

…Oh yeah, CONSISTENCY!  WHY NOW??

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The Photos app

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Word of advice:  This is not UI, but it still makes everything better.

 

This is where the bulk of the artificial intelligence work went.  iOS can now scan each photo in search of objects, face, and scene data, but that’s not all.

It can compile groups of photos and videos into one long video called a Memory.  It edits, adds transitions, and adds music.  It creates a story, it can selectively pick out your best photos, and your best clips from your videos.  It does all this automatically.  You do absolutely nothing.  You can pick the mood and the length, and it can re-edit the entire video automatically.

Of course this is completely similar to Google’s Auto Awesome feature, except for the Mood and Length sliders.

It does it all on device…unless Apple’s lying (and if you want a downer, talk to my dad about iOS.  That is all.)

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Everything else

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Word of advice:  You’re slow, Apple.

 

I watched a 50 Hidden Features of iOS 10 video.  I found a >RESTRICTED BY TOS< in the Notes app.  And yes, I got excited and downloaded it, and yes, I’m a registered developer, and no, I might not use that account properly, but yes, I will try as hard as I can to keep these betas secret, at least until Apple releases the Public Betas.

I’m assuming I can show people things that were shown in the keynote, because everyone and their dog watches those, but as for things not shown in the keynote, I’m not allowed to show, and I will respect that.  As much as I can.

 

One thing that could be a point of alarm…they changed the way you get into the phone.  Instead of swiping to the right, you press the home button.  I guess that’s more in line with the Home screen build-in animation, but…I wonder if it would cause someone to instinctively throw their phone against the wall the first time they see that.

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watchOS

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Well, at least Apple finally thought.  Uh—I mean they finally did something—they finally made the apps launch instantly—um, they finally……gave Jony Ive a white egg……or whatever……

*shrug* It’s a better watch now.  It has a dock so you can access your favorite apps.  You activate it by pressing the side button.  So now it does four things.  Hey, they’re at least TRYING to try.  Not that the Apple Watch was intuitive to begin with.

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tvOS

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This was the only place where Apple mentioned a Dark Mode in the keynote.  The reason?  Eddy Cue pressed a button that made a high pitched whine that freaked out his dog and caused it to eat that part of the script.  Or in layman’s terms:  I have no clue.

Apple’s making a new version of the Remote app to control it.  Beyond that I don’t remember.

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macOS

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Yes, it isn’t called OS X anymore.  Instead Apple made the name fall in line with everything else.  There’s a joke here, but Bozoma ate it.

Siri integration!  And she kind of serves the same purpose as Spotlight!  [Also I just realized, now Spotlight can be construed as a way to type to Siri…kind of.]

Also, space management.  As in, the Mac uploads old files that you don’t use as often to the cloud and deletes them from the hard disk.  Which is why I won’t be downloading the developer preview for the Mac…that will almost literally be playing with fire.  Or a time bomb.  Or both.

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One more thing…

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There was a one more thing.  And it was weird.  It was the weirdest and yet most refreshing (in a way) thing I’ve seen from Apple.  Wanna know what it was?

 

It was the iOS 10 marketing video that wasn’t shown in the iOS 10 section because apparently no one noticed that no one wrote it into the section because no one said no or no one said yes and WHAT THE F—

Every time you blurt about Apple products being glitchy or slow or not doing what you want, Jony Ive sheds a tear.  He and his team work their asses into the smallest cracks in the ground to get Apple’s products to gel with the human condition; to get every single Apple product to adapt to your lifestyle so you don’t have to learn how to adapt to your life…you’ll be able to just deal with it in the fastest way possible.  That’s really the goal of any tech product…and Apple knows this.  Everyone knows this, except every single bloated money-grubbing stupid-[REDACTED].

 

Well…that’s not entirely true.  Be warned, this is going to be an attack on Apple.  I hate doing that.  [I already tired to write a post like this and I just couldn’t do it.  I never deleted it from Drafts because I was wrestling with myself.]

 

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Look at the iPad 2.  No, not the iPad Air 2, the second-generation iPad.  Yes, THAT.  I still have one.  It still supports the current OS.  Lemme repeat that:  The second iPad that Apple’s ever released supports iOS 9.3.2, when it came with iOS 4.2.1.  That is 6 iOS versions.

 

It’s as slow if not slower than my android phone.  Apps sometimes take more than three seconds to start.  The keyboard often lags so much, I can finish typing two or three short words before the keyboard registers the first keystroke, and then it replays the past keystrokes as it catches up to what I’m doing.  The Notification Center almost never responds instantly when I swipe from the status bar.  And it’s been like that since iOS 7.  It’s usable though, which is why I still have it.  I don’t really want to pay that much money for a new one.

 

So why the holy hell is it that slow, when Apple believes in doing everything the fastest way possible?  Even simplicity gets into that issue, as when a button doesn’t instantly respond, you’re left with an arbitrary waiting period where your left wondering “Did I miss the tap target or something?”!  Same for the Apple Watch.  Same for any interface lag that ever invaded any device.  And yes, even my 6s stutters occasionally.

 

You might just chalk that up to “Eh, it happens.  Hardware slows up as its software improves.  There’s no way around it.”

You might also chalk it up to “Apple obviously doesn’t care about speed or simplicity.  The borderless buttons ensure everyone remains confused about what buttons are, and the continued support and unacceptable speed of the iPad 2 proves that speed is not a concern at Apple.”

 

Both of those are complete and utter bull anus.  At least it is if the people at Apple actually remember how to innovate hard and solve problems.  And I admit…it’s extremely difficult to tell if they actually remember.  There’s tons of information saying that they continue to think and solve numerous problems by hacking at them relentlessly until the universe gives up.  But there’s also tons of information saying that as soon as Steve Jobs died, they all turned 16 years old, donned business suits, and said “We got a shiny ship to sail, lets make some money.”

 

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I have a way to interpret all this.  And it violates the Rules of Simplicity as stated in this book.

 

My theory is that Apple literally has too much to do.  They have to keep up with too many things:  Their product lines are too big.  And to cope with that, they have to hire a lot of companies and people.  This increases the number of people working on stuff, and, as the book says, that’s one way to let the evil Complexity into your clean garden of Simplicity.

 

So yes, they might have to deal with a lot of things…but someone had to continue to compile OS files for the iPad 2.  Someone had to have noticed “Hey…the user experience on this iPad really sucks.”  Why didn’t they?

 

Well…maybe the Simplicity Garden is crumbling.  Maybe they are devolving into Generic Money-Hogging Technology Company #54837.

 

We’ll see.