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Apple Piles On the Features, and Users Say, 'Enough!' (nytimes.com)
In a few hours, Apple will kickstart its annual developer conference. At the event, the company is expected to announce new MacBook laptops, the next major updates for iOS and MacOS, new features of Siri, and a home-speaker. Ahead of the conference, The New York Times has run a story that talks some of the headline announcements that Apple announced last year: one of which was, the ability to order food, scribble doodles and send funny images known as stickers in chats on its Messages app. Speaking with users, engineers and industry insiders, the Times reports that many of its existing features -- including expansion of Messages -- are too complicated for many users to figure out (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternative source). From the report: The idea was to make Messages, one of the most popular apps on the iPhone, into an all-purpose tool like China's WeChat. But the process of finding and installing other apps in Messages is so tricky that most users have no idea they can even do it, developers and analysts say.
Seems a case of "it just bloats" from now on.
In a few hours, Apple will kickstart its annual developer conference.
I find this really surprising. I was sure Apple had plenty of capital.
Is a fucking Mac Pro that is not a fucking trash can.
That you can buy a new updated fucking motherboard for and not a waste a whole god damn machine.
The first time Job left apple lost their way.
Problem is we dont have him anymore to bring the company back around.
Carplay needs to be fixed, Apple Maps is a shitshow compared to everything else right now, 3 years ago it was decent, but now it's broken as hell. They need to allow Google,Garmin,Waze, etc to be on carplay. They need to LET ANY app be on carplay as long as they meet the requirements.
The hardware is sound, but the rush for features is getting a mess. Siri is not useable anymore because HomeKit is too closed. So now I use Alexia because she at least will control my whole house. (No HomeKit compatablity with any real home automation like AMX/Crestron but Alexia works!)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Apple needs to stop trying to write one-size-fits-all Applications.
iTunes. Horrible. Is it a store, a media center, a device data management tool? Why yes, and it's pretty terrible at all of those things.
Messages? That's where I want to send and receive communications from... iOS already has an App Store why would I want to replicate that function in my communications app?
And what's up with stickers? Who but a teenager would even want to use that stuff? It's not a viable communication medium for adults wanting to convey actual messages.
Why Apple thinks these are the things they should be focusing on instead of improving their hardware lineup, fixing bugs and improving workflow operations is beyond me (I'm giving sideeye to the difference between sending photos in email vs Messages...)
Users say: Enough!
It's a great walled garden. Really, the best. I'm going to make it even bigger. It's going to be yuge!
I used to have a Motorola Droid; then a Samsung Android.
In 2010 or so, GE policy basically mandated that I have a work phone, but they only offered iphones. I got an iphone 4s for work e-mail and phone, and kept my Samsung in my pocket.
Several years later, I ended up consolidating both phones into my work phone (iPhone 5s at that point) because I was tired of carrying two phones around, especially if work was going to pay for one - and I hardly used the other for anything except for playing crap off the google store in my downtime.
Today I have an iphone 6, having passed on the iphone 7. Text messaging is weird, even with autocorrect turned off; if I tilt the phone at the wrong angle, it switches to that stupid doodle mentioned in TFS. If I swipe or fat finger, it switches from text messaging to that stupid doodle or emojis.
Fuck you apple. Seriously. Fuck you and your wannabe Wechat. I wish I had my android back.
iOS does seem very obscure now, the other day I had to help a family member delete a message through the iPad mail app with a gmail account, it took forever to figure out how to do it, it seems to want you to "archive" the message and never delete it! We had to manually move it to the trash folder. Very unintuitive.
Also the iPad has plenty of room for text labels on the mail app but there are none, it's hard for my aunt to figure out what does what, and she doesn't want to push a button unless she knows exactly what it does. She had to take notes on how to use this. I feel bad for her.
Apple needs a swift kick in the ass. They've completely lost sight of the Jobs method of empire building which starts with "build and maintain your moat." That moat is the Mac. Even if it becomes 10% of their revenue, it is one of the single most important products they have because of a few reasons:
1. It has developers get to every iOS product line.
2. It is the general purpose computer of influencers and decision makers.
3. It is a hub to the iOS product lines that Apple can totally control.
It takes no real resources for a company like Apple to regularly update the Mac lines. They can easily afford to sacrifice some potential profitability to make their pro lines robust, repairable, upgradeable, etc. I didn't mind a semi-disposable iPhone when the Macbook Pro was like it was until the post-Jobs era. Now I don't know any power users that think Apple for a $1500-$2500 laptop purchase because we all now think it's a sucker's game.
My main complaint with Apple's new features of the past years has been that most have limited reach.
Things like Apple Pay are still not available in The Netherlands (where I live), years after release. Siri took years to arrive and is still far more limited than in the US. Other features are constrained to the Apple ecosystem, ignoring the fact that most users own and interact with various platforms. I've never felt a need to explore stickets in Messages, because barely anyone I know still uses Messages.
Developer here. I do some development on my MacBooks (newest is MacBook Pro from mid 2015). My ongoing wishlist:
- Large screens (DPI matters less than actual real estate): 15-inches or more, and vertical space is valuable
- At least two large/powered USB ports (today I have two large - Type A - and one powered)
- Two HDMI ports (today I have one; I use an adapter for my second monitor)
- Docking station (I do most of my work at one workstation where my monitors/keyboard/headphones live - today I plug/unplug 6 cables when I get in for the morning or back from a meeting)
No, I don't need a headphone jack. Bluetooth/wireless is a thing these days.
Bring the hardware up to modern specifications, then try to maintain a reasonable price, and people will be more likely flock to it. Of course, they make enough money on iPhone/iPad that they probably don't feel particularly motivated to improve the state of affairs for desktop/laptop users.
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
I've been a longtime Apple Support Specialist and I've never, ever, seen it hit such a low level of usability and simplicity. It's as if the current Apple has a UI team staffed by the people who designed Windows 3.1. Even basic applications like Messages (on the Mac) are now so difficult to use (AND buggy) that many users have simply given up.
Apple needs to fire or re-assign every single person that worked on the UI designs post Snow Leopard and post IOS 6 and do a complete "Microsoft Windows 8 doh! moment reversal." They need to go back to where they were then, when everything worked exactly as it should and made freaking sense.
There is nothing worse than trying to teach people how to use current Apple software: "Why is this this way?" (Because Steve Jobs died and the people now in charge at Apple are morons.) "This doesn't make any sense." (No, it doesn't, it's complete nonsense and you just have to memorize it.) It's a fracking nightmare.
Imac pro without E-net build in! do you want to add an
$19.99 TB3 to E-net dongle?
$39.99 TB3 to 10G-E-net dongle?
$29.99 TB3 to SFP+ dongle?
I think they should add a feature where people can write stories. They could call it Stories.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
... to order food, scribble doodles and send funny pictures?
Wow. Society rally is going down the drain.
What the iPhone really needs is a one-button mouse. Simple solution to a simple problem.
apple needs an server system or at least rights to run server in a VM on ANY base hardware. Small and big business can use an local update mirror and they would like to rack mount it / load on there in place VM hardware. Also apple used to have an mini server but they just had cut the power and make the mini even thinner.
And the mac pro??? 256G is small and 2 video cards is over kill for an server.
"We have just launched the new iPhone, it comes with *exactly* the same features as the last one."
That's obviously never going to happen, so creeping featurism it is. It's so hard to avoid this, no matter what kind of software system you're building. And that's exactly the reason why. Apple - and to at least some extend the users - want to have new features on the phones. But cutting away something that current users still use also sound like a bad idea.
Maybe Jobs could have avoided this. I doubt it. It's a major dilemma that all software and hardware vendors face all the time.
Every few days a new iOS update is downloaded without my consent, with no way to disable it. Wasting my money on data caps. Apple should use it's $100 billion to pay for internet connections of its users if it wants to force download updates.
What's the point of them selling servers? Apple's MO is quality, consumer-facing hardware and software, not a race to the bottom to make IT managers happy.
iMessage can become as advanced as it wants; the fundamental issue is that it's not a cross-platform app. Its extra features are only available on iOS devices and Macs.
I use mostly Telegram with my friends because it runs on everything. Even though I love my iPhone I recognize that without cross-platform support, some of its features will always be limited. Apple should open up iMessage to other platforms, then we might see some greater adoption of its fancier features.
Since the first iPhone hit the market there has to my knowledge never been an instruction manual. There is no need stop adding features to the iPhone there is simply a need now for documentation.
My messages/imessage/SMS are broken. Have spent hours trying to get it to work. From some people, I only receive them on my computer, from others they arrive on my iPhone. Receiving and sending SMS from my computer haven't worked in months.
Sigh.
If I have to spend hours getting things to work, I might as well build my own Windows computer again.
Apple has never released an instruction manual for the iPhones since they've been released to the public. I suggest adding one and not worrying about a users' ability to discover new features. I love any new functionality built in to each new model and don't see why it should stop anytime soon
One App to rule them all, One App to find them,
One App to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
Have gnu, will travel.
One App to shut them down!
well they need something to get into business and they used to have servers rack mount and all kinds of sever stuff with them.
The person responsible for accelerometer activation of doodles in Messenger is no longer employed at Apple.
....is " ability to order food, scribble doodles and send funny images known as stickers in chats on its Messages app" a handy feature. Those of us who aren't frequently find ourselves inanely "commenting" on a text by accident. And, of course, that can't be turned off.
Users? Really? What users? How many of them? Do you have metrics, or did you just think this up on your own?
This reminds me of one of Trumps favorite phrases. " You know it, I know it, Everybody knows it "
But Apple are meant to be loved and bought by above average earners,so you would expect them to be above average in brains,but it looks like they can't work out how to use a fairly simple option on their devices ?
So,their just as thick as android fanboys,just greedier..
I thought Apple had more cash than God and innovation coming out their ass. Nope, they are just copying the Chinese again, because they ran out of Android things to copy.
... I could name a dozen other companies off the top of my head who are adding more features than I want. Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Mozilla, Adobe, my cable company, my phone company... and that's just from looking at a list of what I have running right now. I could probably hit a hundred if I actually started making a list. Does anyone want to hear details of how the A/C controls in a 2016 Corolla are objectively worse than they were in a 1986 Corolla?
Apple is probably mid-pack in terms of "shit I didn't ask for and don't want".
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Even worse, while those dongles use nowhere near the bandwidth available form the port they plug into, they don't daisy chain. It's easy to say that shouldn't be a problem because you can just plug it in at the end of the chain, but we're talking about something you'll always want plugged in, which should dictate that it's at the start of the chain. Furthermore, almost no Thunderbolt devices daisy chain properly, so you can't just stick it at the end of the chain in the first place. And I largely blame Apple for that, as the company pushing hardest for the proliferation of Thunderbolt; they set the example and everyone else follows it. When their devices don't daisy chain, nobody else is going to bother, either.
4 ports could be enough if peripherals supported the spec properly. With USB, it's plenty as you can use a hub. Thunderbolt doesn't work like that, it's daisy chain or nothing; if you have more than 3 things to plug in (power being #4) you're screwed.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Not much innovation on the MacOS front for a WWDC. Looks like Apple really is a media company now. iOS seems to be their main software focus.