Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by napierzaza | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

napierzaza

And better products and better design

View on HN

Right. Like that monument to best-practices software development, iTunes for Windows.

I am pretty sure that's because they couldn't bother to port Cocoa to Windows.

iTunes isn't built on Cocoa: http://daringfireball.net/2009/09/itunes_and_cocoa

And that's why iTunes is so bad - because it shares code with the Windows version that can't be Cocoa.

Lots of people write great code on Windows. There's no reason why Apple couldn't too, if it cared.

I agree they could make the core cross-platform and build platform-specific GUIs, but, apart from making Windows appear to suck less when compared to Macs, what would they gain from it?

I don't particularly like iTunes, but it does two jobs for Apple: it syncs iPods and makes Windows look bad.

I often hear people beating down on iTunes on Windows. Can someone explain what is wrong with it? I understand that it's not based on Cocoa, but aside from that what problems does it have?

It's laggy, stuttery, junk. It's basically the only non-game application I can run that'll spike my CPU to 100%.

Big, slow, bloated, heavy-handed with settings (no, I don't want Safari, or QuickTime, or for you to phone home every five minutes), leaks memory, installs wads of silent 'helper' processes, non-native UI, frequent crashes, insanely jealous of all other ways to add songs to iPods...

It's very very slow, it crashes often, the UI is weird and hard to figure out (maybe it's more intuitive for Mac users?) and it has several annoying bugs: when syncing with my iPod it often marks podcasts I've listened to, or partially listened to as unlistened; it often hangs when trying to connect to the iTunes store (this is remedied by running "ipconfig /flushdns" at the command line); if I buy something from my wishlist it only removes from the wishlist about half the time. And every time it updates itself it tries to install Safari...

It is a sub-standard app based on a cross-platform layer of software (Carbon) that has not been updated to take advantage of platform enhancements (i.e., Windows 7).

Granted, it's not third-party since Apple owns the Carbon layer and iTunes, but then again, Flash isn't third-party for Adobe's in-house developers for the very same reason. Perhaps this is what Jobs means by "painful experience".

Microsoft's keyboards are much better than Apple's

Eh, depends on the person. I prefer smaller keyboards like the happy hacker keyboard. Apple has a bluetooth version of it which I love. I prefer keyboards that are laptop-style (shallow key depth).

I would love a "Natural Happy Hacker Ergonomic Keyboard".

Microsoft’s mice certainly are.

That latest Apple multi-touch mouse is very nice.

I voted you back up to 1. Keep expressing your preferences. I don't know why you were downvoted.

Having tried to use one for an afternoon I found it gave me hand cramp. I think my problem though is with heavy mice in general, which is why I tend to avoid wireless ones (batteries add appreciable weight).

What I don’t understand is why Apple haven’t done a standalone version of their Macbook trackpads. I’d buy one of those for sure.

The tiny wireless Apple keyboard is the best keyboard ever.

Maybe from a hardware perspective, but not from a usability perspective. No right control key. No page up or page down. No home or end. No delete key. No number keypad. I was in love with the ergonomics of it...for about a day.

Home and end are function-left/function-right, Page up/down are function up/down, and what you're calling "delete" (Apple calls it forward delete) is function-delete. This is how the whole line of Apple portables are...

Not sure how those work if you're not using a Mac. Maybe you can remap the right Option to Control? Control isn't near as important for most Mac users since Macs use Command where windows uses Control.

I'm using it for both. I find it tolerable under OSX (precisely because of the Command key thing), though I don't like chording for things when there's a perfectly good one key option (like delete, home and end). And how do you Shift+Home/End for selecting? I forget, I know it's possible, but it's also a pain. I finally just punted and bought a Logitech Wave for it. I like it much better.

You have a curious definition of keyboard usability. I was unaware key presence was keyboard usability.

Perhaps you're right. I guess it's more of a keyboard efficiency thing. I can still DO everything I can on a full keyboard, just much less efficiently.

Well, I don't think that's what a portable lightweight bluetooth keyboard is for. It's very comfortable to type on, is fairly durable, and is quite light and reasonably small. It's not meant to replace a full keyboard, just to be a decent substitute.

That said, once I did the ctrl/caps remapping I've used that keyboard extensively with emacs and only occasionally did I feel any real limitations.

Except it's what came with my full-size 27'' beast of an iMac. That sort of thing should come with a full keyboard or something that's supposed to be a substitute for it. If I'd gotten it with a laptop purchase, then yeah, I wouldn't be complaining. It would be pretty cool for that. It works fine with Vim, but not XCode or Visual Studio, which are my two primary uses for the iMac purchase.

They let you choose which of several keyboard-mouse combos you want with your computer, all for the same price.

Not at Best Buy, apparently. I probably still would have chosen the smaller one and then lived to regret it, though.

My physical therapist actually made me switch to the smaller wireless keyboard, and the lingering remnants of my RSD went away. Just shortening the distance between keyboard and mouse made a huge difference.

Agreed. It's just silly to claim "better marketing" is what make people like Apple. Windows is still the most widely used consumer OS in the market: That's also marketing.

OSX is great software, the iPhone is a great product, the original Macintosh changed computing forever. That, IMHO, is not "just better marketing".

That possibly makes them more dangerous.

Evil and competent make a potent mixture...

"be evil" could be quite a fun motto

Apple: "Think Evil"

There: http://www.dieblinkenlights.com/blog_en/think-evil

"Evil Plans are best!" http://gapingvoid.com/2010/04/22/daily-bizcard-03-david-brai... http://gapingvoid.com/ep

Reply on news.ycombinator.com